Off-Grid Property Design
You bought the land.
Now the county has questions.
Code-informed renders and floor plans for your exact parcel, built around your county's actual zoning rules and delivered in 48 hours.
Before we draw a single line, we research your county's setbacks, shoreland classifications, and impervious surface limits so your design fits what's actually allowed.
How It Works
Three steps. 48 hours.
No surprises at the permit office.
Share your parcel
Tell us your county, lake classification, lot size, and what you want to build. Five minutes. No phone call required.
We research your county first
Before a single render is generated, we pull your county's zoning ordinance, setback requirements, impervious surface limits, and height restrictions. Your design is built around what's actually allowed, not what looks good on a template.
Receive your design package
Photorealistic renders and a conceptual floor plan delivered to your inbox within 48 hours of your completed brief.
Your $500 Concept package includes
Traditional architect
$10,000–$20,000
4–8 weeks. Won't take jobs under a certain square footage.
ClearPermit
$500
48 hours. Built for exactly the parcel you bought.
Portfolio
Built around real county rules.
Every render below began with county zoning research — setbacks, minimum sizes, off-grid allowances. What you see is what the actual rules allow, not what looks good in a vacuum.
Crow Wing County, MN
380–420 sq ft · Solar permitted · 75 ft shoreland setback
Crow Wing County, MN
380–420 sq ft · RV occupancy during build · 720 sq ft min waived for park model
Cass County, MN
500–700 sq ft · 150 ft shoreland setback · Composting toilet permitted
Cook County, MN
Multi-unit · North Shore · 200 ft scenic river setback
Aitkin County, MN
~400 sq ft each · Solar by right · Well + septic permitted
Itasca County, MN
~400 sq ft each · Wooded lot · Owner-builder friendly
Pine County, MN
~400 sq ft · 2.5 acre min lot · 30 min from Twin Cities
St. Louis County, MN
300–400 sq ft · Boundary Waters adjacent · Solar by right
Lake County, MN
600–900 sq ft · North Shore terrain · 35 ft height limit
Beltrami County, MN
380–420 sq ft · Bemidji area · RV occupancy during build
Your county. Your parcel. Your design.
Get your design →Raw land to render-ready concept, with your county's actual setback rules, impervious limits, and height restrictions built into every line.
Why ClearPermit
Most design services hand you a pretty picture and wish you luck at the permit office. We start differently.
Before your concept is generated, we research your county's zoning ordinance: setback requirements, impervious surface limits, height restrictions, shoreland classifications, and any overlay rules that affect your parcel. That research shapes every decision in the design.
What you receive is built around what's actually allowed on your specific land, not what looked good on a template someone used last week in a different state. The 48-hour delivery is real because research runs first. Design generation follows with the constraints already loaded. Human refinement closes it. Payment, brief, research, design, delivery.
What this looks like in practice
Crow Wing County, MN — April 2026
A General Development lake lot carries a 75-foot setback from the ordinary high water mark. A Natural Environment lake doubles that to 150 feet. Miss that classification and your entire design has to move, or your lot can't support the structure at all.
We verify your lake class on the county GIS map before drawing anything.
Your impervious surface limit in the Shoreland Protection Zone is 15% of lot area. On a half-acre lot, that's roughly 3,270 square feet total. Less than it sounds once you count the driveway. We design around that from day one.
Start site work before permits are approved and Crow Wing County's after-the-fact penalty is triple the original fee. A $500 permit becomes $1,500. Knowing this before the design is finalized changes how we approach site access and clearing.
Data sourced from Crow Wing County Land Use Ordinance, effective January 23, 2026. Verify current requirements with your local planning office.
Andy Maetzold, Founder
I built ClearPermit because the gap between buying land and knowing what you can actually build on it is real, expensive, and nobody had solved it at a price that made sense for the people who actually buy remote land. You're among the first clients here, which means you get my direct attention on your project.
Start here
Not sure what your county will let you build?
Before you design anything, you need to know the rules. Every county is different — setbacks, minimum dwelling sizes, septic requirements, off-grid allowances. Most buyers find out too late.
A County Assessment gives you a plain-English breakdown of exactly what your county allows — researched from primary sources and delivered as a professional PDF within 24 hours.
Get Your County Assessment— $49Delivered within 24 hours. For planning purposes only.
What's included
- ✓
County at a glance
Is your county permissive or restrictive? How does it compare to neighbors?
- ✓
Zoning districts
Every district that permits cabins, dwellings, or off-grid structures — by right or conditional.
- ✓
Setbacks & buildable area
Front, rear, side, shoreland, and wetland setbacks that shape your usable building envelope.
- ✓
Building size rules
Minimum dwelling sizes, height limits, and impervious surface ratios — the numbers that surprise builders.
- ✓
Permit sequence & fees
Step-by-step permit process with current fee ranges and estimated timelines.
- ✓
Off-grid allowances
What your county says about solar, composting toilets, rainwater, wells, and temporary occupancy.
$49
One-time. Delivered in 24 hours.
Pricing
Ready to design? Choose your package.
Choose the package that matches where you are in your build journey. All designs are code-informed and delivered within 48 hours.
Concept
$500
48-hour delivery
- ✓2–3 photorealistic exterior renders
- ✓Conceptual floor plan
- ✓Code-informed design notes
- ✓County zoning snapshot
- ✓PDF package
Design
$1,500
48-hour delivery
- ✓Expanded render angles
- ✓Full floor plan
- ✓Interior concept renders
- ✓Site context render
- ✓Materials specification
Development
$2,500
5–7 day delivery
- ✓Multiple render angles
- ✓Landscape context
- ✓Detailed site plan
- ✓Full specification documents
- ✓County research deep-dive
The ClearPermit Promise
Love your designs or get 100% back. Every package includes unlimited rendering revisions within 30 days. Still not right? Full refund. No questions asked.
Designs are visualization and planning references only. They do not constitute architectural drawings, engineering documents, construction documents, or permitting submissions. ClearPermit.studio is operated by Noble Refuge LLC and is not a licensed architecture or engineering firm. Consult a licensed professional before construction. Zoning data reflects publicly available records as of April 2026. Verify current requirements with your local planning office.
FAQ
Common questions
Every person who reaches out gets a direct response from me. If something in your county research surfaces a constraint that changes the design, I tell you before we finalize anything. That's the commitment.
Andy Maetzold, Founder · ClearPermit.studio
Get Your Design — $500