Port St. John, Florida

Port St. John is not a city: it is unincorporated Brevard County land along the Indian River, which the Census Bureau tracks as a statistical area named Port St. John CDP.

The Census Bureau's 2024 place file lists Port St. John CDP under place code 1258700 with 9.321 square miles of land and no water area inside its line (2024 Census gazetteer, Florida places). For river access, Brevard County describes the 1.17-acre ramp as boat access to the Indian River near the Fay Boulevard and U.S. 1 intersection, at 6650 N. Cocoa Blvd (US Hwy 1), Port St. John, FL 32927 (Port St. John Boat Ramp listing).

Mailing labels are where Port St. John gets confusing. County listings write the community's name with ZIP 32927, from Fay Lake Wilderness Park at 6300 Fay Boulevard (Fay Lake Wilderness Park listing) to the community center at 6650 Corto Rd (county community centers directory). The federal school locator gives the same 32927 ZIP code but prints Cocoa as the city for every school on it, for example Atlantis Elementary School at 7300 Briggs Ave, Cocoa, FL 32927 (NCES school search for ZIP 32927). Both labels appear on official listings for the same ZIP code.

Port St. John answers to the five-member county commission, and a local seven member appointed advisory board reviews zoning and planning requests in place of the county's Planning and Zoning Board.

State law fixes that shape: each Florida county has five commissioners' districts, whose lines the board redraws to stay as close to equal population as practicable; the statute ties the election of each district's single commissioner to the county's qualified electors under Article VIII, section 1(e) of the State Constitution (Florida Statutes 124.01). With no town hall of its own, Port St. John brings park, library and permit questions to county departments.

What Port St. John does have is the Port St. John Dependent Special District. As established by Ordinance 96-30 and amended by Ordinance 05-22, its board is an appointed seven member advisory board that acts in lieu of the Planning and Zoning Board for requests within the district (Port St. John Dependent Special District page). The county lists that board's meetings at 6:00 PM at the Port St. John Library, 6500 Carole Ave., while the county commission meets at 5:00 PM at the Government Center, 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Building C, in Viera. The district is advisory only: under the state disclosure rules quoted on the same page, it has no fiscal year, imposes and collects no taxes, fees, assessments or charges, has adopted no budget and needs no audit report. Agendas and minutes are posted on the county's advisory board agendas page, and the contact is Planning and Development administrative services at (321) 724-1230.

Port St. John had 25,120 residents in the Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 survey estimates, a typical resident age of 44.9 and a household income midpoint of $87,736.

Sampling leaves the head count uncertain by 2,347 people either way (ACS DP05 for Port St. John CDP), so it is best read as a range rather than a head count. Port St. John is overwhelmingly a place of owned homes: 94.3 percent of its occupied housing units are owner occupied, and the same table counts 949 vacant units (ACS DP04 for Port St. John CDP). Workers in the CDP report a mean commute of 27.9 minutes (ACS DP03 for Port St. John CDP).

Port St. John's public draws are county sites: the 192.7-acre Fay Lake Wilderness Park, the Indian River boat ramp off U.S. 1, the community center on Corto Road and the library on Carole Avenue.

At the west end of Fay Boulevard, Fay Lake Wilderness Park offers a bicycle roadway and walking path, a non-motorized boat ramp and three fishing piers on a 27-acre lake, along with 2 playgrounds, 4 pavilions, a fenced off-leash dog park and restrooms, with free parking (Fay Lake Wilderness Park page). The dog park opens daily from 7:00 AM to dusk, allows two dogs per handler and has no staff on duty; pavilion rentals go through (321) 633-1904.

On the river side, the Port St. John Boat Ramp has a 2 lane motorized saltwater ramp, shoreline fishing and room for 40 cars and boat trailers, with free parking (county boat ramp page). The county tags it as a launch viewing site for Kennedy Space Center, and North Area Operations answers at (321) 264-5105. The park page names the viewing spot only; launch dates are not part of it. The Port St. John Community Center at 6650 Corto Rd shares the (321) 633-1904 line with Fay Lake (Brevard community centers directory).

The Port St. John Public Library at 6500 Carole Ave., phone (321) 633-1867, opens on Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m., which the county's Mims / Scottsmoor branch does not (county library branch table). The Port St. John library guide covers its rooms, computers and weekly programs.

Among the results of a 32927 search, the NCES directory lists four elementary schools and Space Coast Junior/Senior High School, and Florida's 2026 grades put two at A, two at B and one at C.

Enrollment counts come from the locator's 2024-2025 data, and the phone numbers it lists include (321) 633-6143 for Atlantis Elementary and (321) 638-0750 for Space Coast Junior/Senior High (NCES public school search, 32927). Florida's education department dated its grades file as of September 1, 2026; an elementary school earns an A there with 62% of points or better (state grades workbook). The locator search runs by ZIP code, not attendance zone, so the countywide public schools guide is the place to check which school a given Port St. John street is assigned to.

One documented recent change in Port St. John is in its school grades, where Atlantis Elementary rose to an A in 2026 while Challenger 7 Elementary and Space Coast Junior/Senior High slipped from an A to a B.

Enterprise Elementary held its A and Fairglen Elementary held its C between the 2025 and 2026 grade columns of the state file (Florida school grades, 2025-26). For Space Coast Junior/Senior High, a combination school, the state scale sets an A at 65 percent of possible points or more, and the school's 2026 row shows 61 percent.

Land use change in Port St. John runs through its advisory board first. The county lists five ordinances that shape the district's creation, powers and duties, numbered 1996-30, 1999-05, 2001-04, 2005-22 and 2015-12, and points to its Board Meeting Calendar for meeting details (county page on the Port St. John district). Requests inside the district go to this board in place of the Planning and Zoning Board, and the same county page lists the board's meeting place at the Carole Avenue library beside the county commission's in Viera.

Brevard County's emergency office and its AlertBrevard system cover Port St. John, and federal flood insurance there falls under Brevard County's program number, 125092.

The county sends AlertBrevard notices, a location-based system for emergencies such as boil water notices, wildfires and weather watches and warnings, and the emergency office itself sits at 1751 Huntington Lane, Rockledge, reachable at (321) 637-6670 (Brevard County Emergency Management). Storm surge, flooding and tropical cyclones all appear in the county's hazard list.

In FEMA's flood program record, Brevard County, community 125092, has held rating class 8 since October 1, 2024; FEMA lists the discount as 10% for policies in mapped high-risk zones and 5 percent elsewhere (FEMA community status record, 125092). That record dates the flood map now in effect to 01/29/21 and the county's original rate map to September 22, 1972. Separate Brevard County guides on this site walk through hurricane shelters, sandbags and AlertBrevard.

Last verified: October 21, 2026: Port St. John's three Census profiles, the 2024 place file, Brevard's advisory district, Fay Lake, ramp, centers, branch and emergency listings, the NCES and FLDOE school data, statute 124.01 and the FEMA 125092 record were all reread that day.