Fairport

Fairport is an incorporated village, and it sits entirely inside the Town of Perinton in southeastern Monroe County. Monroe County’s own hazard mitigation plan puts it plainly: Perinton "completely encircles the Village of Fairport", so the village shares no boundary with any other town. That nesting is the single most useful thing to understand before you search here, because a Fairport mailing address is not evidence of being in the village. See current Fairport area homes for sale.

Village or town? It changes your tax bill. The Village of Fairport covers 1.58 square miles and the 2020 Census counted 5,501 residents there, with a Census Bureau estimate of 5,326 as of July 1, 2025. The Town of Perinton around it covers 34.2 square miles, with 47,479 counted in 2020 and an estimated 46,823 in 2025, of whom roughly 41,500 live outside the village. An owner outside the village gets a combined Town and County bill in January and a school bill in September. An owner inside the village pays all of that plus a separate Fairport Village tax bill, on a village fiscal year that runs June 1 to May 31, with bills mailed June 1 and due July 1. Assessments for village properties are set by the Town of Perinton, not by the village, and Perinton completed a townwide revaluation that began in 2025. The village publishes an interactive boundary map so you can check a specific address before you assume either way.

Five school districts, not one. This is where the Fairport mailing address catches people out most expensively. The Town of Perinton confirms on its own schools page that there are five school districts in Perinton: Fairport, Pittsford, Penfield, Victor and East Rochester. Monroe County’s school tax rate table lists all five against the town. A property in the Bushnell’s Basin area, for example, can sit in Pittsford Central School District rather than Fairport. Fairport Central School District itself runs seven schools, with Brooks Hill, Dudley, Jefferson Avenue and Northside at elementary level, Johanna Perrin and Martha Brown at middle level and Fairport High School, and the National Center for Education Statistics reported 5,269 students across the district for 2024-2025. Only two of those seven buildings are inside the village. Confirm the district for the exact address before you write an offer.

Housing stock, and the village versus town split. The two are genuinely different markets. In the Village of Fairport the American Community Survey 2019-2023 five year estimates give 2,609 housing units with a median construction year of 1938, and 1,372 of those units were built in 1939 or earlier, the largest single age band. In the Town of Perinton the same survey gives 21,014 units with a median construction year of 1977. Village stock is older and denser, with 1,494 single unit detached houses but also 417 units in two unit buildings and a median of 6.3 rooms. Town stock outside the village is more suburban, 14,591 single unit detached and a median of 7.0 rooms. Owner occupancy runs 1,671 of 2,515 occupied units in the village against 16,041 of 20,224 in the town.

The canal and the lift bridge. About 7.3 miles of the Erie Canal run through Perinton, and the canal is why the village exists at all. The area was settled in 1789, the canal became navigable here in 1822 and drained the swampy ground the village grew on, and Fairport incorporated in 1867. The village attributes its name to canal travellers who called the stop "a pretty fair port"; the Town Historian records a slightly different version, an early traveller declaring "This is a fine port". The Fairport Lift Bridge carries Main Street across the canal at a 32 degree skew and on a 4 percent grade, which makes it unusual among the sixteen vertical lift bridges on this stretch. It was built under a contract awarded in June 1910 and completed in 1913, and a pair of 27 horsepower motors raise it from 6 feet of clearance to 15.75 feet in 45 seconds. Pedestrians can still cross while it is raised. During canal season, roughly May to October, you will see it go up for passing boats.

A village that runs its own electric utility. Fairport Electric is a municipal utility operated by the village, which is uncommon in Monroe County and is one of the practical differences between a village address and a town one. The village’s departments are the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office, Fairport Electric, Police, Public Works and Fire.

Roads and getting around. I-490, officially the Erie Canal Expressway, runs through Perinton. Three state routes serve the area: NY Route 31F, which the county inventory records locally as Fairport Road, NY Route 250, and NY Route 96, recorded locally as Pittsford Victor Road. NY Route 31 is Palmyra Road. County roads include Turk Hill Road, Whitney Road, Ayrault Road and Victor Road. Perinton’s own Highway Department maintains 326 lane miles of town road. The town describes itself as 12 miles east of Rochester. Regional Transit Service runs Route 50, timetabled as Fairport/Penfield suburban service, with stops including Fairport Village Hall and the Pines of Perinton.

Hamlets and commercial areas. Perinton contains the hamlets of Bushnell’s Basin and Egypt. Bushnell’s Basin sits in the southwestern part of the town where the Erie Canal winds through, and includes boat docks with overnight facilities. In the village, the commercial core includes the Village Landing and Packett’s Landing complexes, built after the old canal town buildings on those sites were replaced around the late 1960s and early 1970s. Outside the village, the Whitney Road corridor carries small businesses and restaurants, including the Whitney Town Center.

Parks and recreation. The Perinton Parks Department operates 15 parks and trails, working with the Crescent Trail Association. Perinton Park covers 43.6 acres with direct access to the Erie Canal and the Canalway Trail. The Perinton Amphitheater sits behind the Perinton Community Center at 1350 Turk Hill Road, within Center Park West, a 49 acre park. Spring Lake Park lies in northwest Perinton along Irondequoit Creek and now connects through to a park in Penfield. The White Brook Nature Area in the southeast corner near Aldrich Road offers trails across more than 100 acres. Egypt Park at Pittsford-Palmyra Road and Victor Road is operated by the Humane Society at Lollypop Farm. There is also the Garnsey Road Arboretum, which is not an active recreation site, and the Ayrault Road Boat Launch for small watercraft. The Perinton Community and Aquatic Center on Turk Hill Road is the town’s only indoor recreation facility and includes a six lane, 25 yard pool. The village separately owns Vincent G. Kennelley Park and two pavilions, one on the north bank of the canal and one at the Fairport Junction parking lot, and manages canal docking through dock masters.

Historic properties. The National Park Service lists nine National Register properties with a Fairport address in Monroe County, including the Wilbur House at 187 South Main Street and the Henry DeLand House at 99 South Main Street, and all nine sit inside the village boundary. Richardson’s Tavern at 1474 Marsh Road was added to the Register in 1980 and sits in Perinton outside the village. Separately from the federal register, Perinton has maintained local landmark designations under a Historic Preservation Ordinance since 1987. The 1937 Fairport Public Library building has housed the Perinton Historical Society museum since 1979.

Addresses that say Fairport but are not in the village. Perinton Town Hall at 1350 Turk Hill Road, Lollypop Farm at 99 Victor Road and the Fairport Baptist Home on Fairport Nine Mile Point Road all carry Fairport mailing addresses and all sit in the Town of Perinton outside the village. Each was checked address by address against the US Census Bureau geocoder. If the tax and school consequences matter to you, and they should, check the address rather than the postmark.

Comparing Fairport with other Rochester towns. The Rochester suburbs comparison sets Fairport beside Victor, Pittsford, Brighton and Webster on tax structure, school district and housing age. Neighboring town pages: Pittsford, Penfield, Brighton and Henrietta.

Buying or selling here. The complete Rochester buyer guide covers preapproval, offers, attorney approval, inspection and closing in order. For county context see the Rochester housing market page and how Monroe County median prices are measured. Any market figures shown elsewhere on this page come from Lofty’s market module and are separate from the editorial content written here; note that the module’s population figure tracks the wider Perinton area rather than the village.

Sources: Village of Fairport, Town of Perinton and its Office of the Town Historian, Monroe County, the New York State Department of Transportation, the National Park Service and Historic American Engineering Record, the National Center for Education Statistics, Regional Transit Service and the US Census Bureau. Municipal boundaries were confirmed with the US Census Bureau geocoder address by address. Updated October 6, 2026.