Cocoa Beach building height and density limits

Forty-five feet: the Cocoa Beach City Charter says no structure, no part of a structure and no attachment may rise more than 45 feet above the crown of the abutting road (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.04).

The Cocoa Beach Land Development Code repeats the cap for all new construction in its own Section 3-37, titled the forty-five-foot building height limit, and lists the exceptions in lettered paragraphs A through F (Cocoa Beach Land Development Code Section 3-37). Because the number sits in the charter itself, changing it takes a charter amendment, which is adopted when a majority of the qualified voters voting in a referendum approve it (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 8.01).

Two other charter rules in Cocoa Beach back the cap up. Any Comprehensive Plan adoption or amendment that increases permissible building height or allowable density or intensity needs the affirmative vote of all five city commissioners, while other plan changes need four (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.07). Section 2.07 of the charter lists the height limit and the residential density limits among the matters with their own voting requirements (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 2.07).

The rules on this page are about how high and how dense a Cocoa Beach building may be. Permits, inspections and contractor rules are covered in the Cocoa Beach building permits guide, and oceanfront setback lines, seawalls and dune crossovers in the Cocoa Beach dune and coastal construction guide.

Normally from the crown of the abutting road, but on any Cocoa Beach parcel with a FEMA base flood elevation or another legally required minimum elevation, the 45 feet starts from that higher elevation instead (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.08).

The Cocoa Beach charter measures the limit from the higher of the base flood elevation or the other minimum elevation, rather than the crown of the abutting road, and on all parcels up to ten feet of unoccupied building elements and attachments on top of a building do not count toward the limit (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.08). The Land Development Code states the same two rules in paragraphs C and D of Section 3-37 (Cocoa Beach Land Development Code Section 3-37).

Base flood elevations in Cocoa Beach come from FEMA's flood maps. FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program record for the City of Cocoa Beach, community 125097, shows the currently effective map dated January 29, 2021, a regular program date of June 16, 1972, and a Community Rating System class 9 effective April 1, 2025 (FEMA NFIP Community Status Book record for Cocoa Beach).

A third Cocoa Beach accommodation covers storm surge design. Where federal, state or local law requires a wash through or similar grade level passage for storm surges, a building lost to a casualty may be rebuilt to its previous height plus up to the height of the wash through, if needed to keep the same density with the same habitable area or gross square footage (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.08; Cocoa Beach Land Development Code Section 3-37).

The Cocoa Beach charter bars zoning any part of the city above ten dwelling units per acre for permanent occupancy or 28 units per acre for transient accommodations such as motels and hotels (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.01).

The Cocoa Beach density section adds that there shall be no fractional weighting of dwelling units, and that transient accommodations shall not be converted to permanent occupancy at densities above those limits (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.01). A razed structure may be replaced only by one that conforms to the density limits, except as Section 6.09 or the section's own rebuild clause allows (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.01).

For context on the city's motel era, the Cocoa Beach history page lists the Starlite Motel of 1956, with 100 rooms, as the first motel and that Cocoa Beach was incorporated from a town to a city in 1957 (Cocoa Beach History at a Glance).

Yes: the Cocoa Beach charter lets owners of structures destroyed or badly damaged by disaster rebuild to the same height and unit count in the same location (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Sections 6.01 and 6.04).

Cocoa Beach voters later extended that right beyond disasters. Section 6.09, Non casualty loss rebuild, lets residential and non-residential structures be razed and rebuilt to their existing height and density as if they had been lost to a casualty event, and as the comprehensive plan may provide (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.09). Paragraph E of Land Development Code Section 3-37 carries the same rule for height (Cocoa Beach Land Development Code Section 3-37).

Outside those rebuild rights, a taller new Cocoa Beach structure needs a variance. The charter lets the City Commission grant a height or density variance to an individual parcel when special conditions would make literal enforcement an unnecessary hardship and the variance is not contrary to the public interest, on findings that the legal variance standards are met and a concurring vote of four commissioners (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.04). The request starts as a written petition, and the public hearing is scheduled as expeditiously as possible but not earlier than 30 days after a sufficient petition is submitted (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.04). The Land Development Code points height variances for new structures to its Section 4-40 (Cocoa Beach Land Development Code Section 3-37).

The five-member Cocoa Beach City Commission, elected at large to four-year terms, decides variances and plan changes, and the voters decide charter changes (Cocoa Beach City Commission page; Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 8.01).

Cocoa Beach has had a City Commission and City Manager form of government since the citizens adopted it on June 19, 1958; one of the five commission members is the Mayor, who presides at meetings (Cocoa Beach City Commission page). Commission meetings are held at Cocoa Beach City Hall, 2 South Orlando Avenue, second floor, and are open to the public (Cocoa Beach City Commission page).

Cocoa Beach voters also hold a check through initiative and referendum. An ordinance adopted by the voters in a referendum may not be amended or repealed except by a vote of four members of the commission (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 7.06), and a charter amendment proposed by petition goes to the voters at an election held not more than 120 days after the commission orders it on the ballot (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 8.01).

Through a series of ordinances and referendums from 1964 to 2008, recorded in the city's zoning ordinance index and in the history notes of the Cocoa Beach charter (Cocoa Beach zoning ordinance index; Cocoa Beach City Charter).

The Cocoa Beach zoning ordinance index describes Ordinance 1343 of September 5, 2002 as amending charter Section 6.04 to reduce the maximum allowable height of structures from 85 feet above mean sea level to 45 feet above crown of abutting road, with a right to rebuild after disaster, subject to a referendum (Cocoa Beach zoning ordinance index). It describes Ordinance 1342 of the same date as reducing permanent residential density from 15 to ten units per acre and transient density from 40 to 28 units per acre, with a provision for applications authorizing 12 and 30 units per acre (Cocoa Beach zoning ordinance index). The current charter text of Section 6.01 states the ten and 28 unit limits and contains no 12 or 30 unit provision (Cocoa Beach City Charter, Section 6.01).

Two numbering differences appear between the Cocoa Beach records. The index lists Ordinance 1365 as adding a Section 6.10, Building Height Limit Accommodation, and Ordinance 1366 as adding a Section 6.11, Non Casualty Loss Rebuild (Cocoa Beach zoning ordinance index), while the current charter carries those rules as Sections 6.08 and 6.09 with the same ordinances in their history notes (Cocoa Beach City Charter). The index also records an emergency ordinance, number 1312, proposing a moratorium on development above ten and 28 units per acre and above 45 feet above crown of road, marked not considered (Cocoa Beach zoning ordinance index). The index is dated as updated February 1, 2019 (Cocoa Beach zoning ordinance index).

Last verified: October 21, 2026, by re-reading the Cocoa Beach City Charter, Land Development Code Section 3-37, the city's zoning ordinance index, the City Commission and History at a Glance pages, and FEMA's flood program record for community 125097.