Cocoa, FL Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Appendix A, Article XI, Section 5(C) of the Cocoa Code of Ordinances lists child care centers, day nurseries and kindergartens among the special exceptions available in the RU-2-15, Multiple-Family Dwelling District, alongside public parks and playgrounds, noncommercial cultural and social service centers, private clubs and lodges, sewer lift stations, churches and related buildings, security mobile homes, bed and breakfast establishments, and adult congregate living facilities. A special exception is not a use that a property owner can start on their own; Article XVII governs how the Board of Adjustment reviews and grants one, weighing the proposed child care use against the district's medium-density residential character before it can be approved, and once granted the use is not treated as a nonconforming use going forward.

Cocoa's general code separately defines a day care center, at Chapter 14, as any family or child care facility licensed by the state under Florida Statutes Chapter 402, and for enforcement purposes that definition folds in the facility's parking lot, yards, playgrounds and other outdoor areas as part of the regulated site. RU-2-15 itself carries a 7,500-square-foot minimum lot (5,000 square feet for smaller single- and multi-family buildings), forty percent maximum lot coverage and a thirty-five-foot height cap, so any approved child care use in the district still has to fit inside those same bulk limits.