County honors Marty Perry, respected zoning attorney who died last year

He helped shape Palm Beach County zoning code then represented developers with aplomb.

For 50 years, zoning attorney Marty Perry made his mark just about every month at some Palm Beach County zoning or commission meeting, pushing developer petitions with a unique style that at times seemed like performance art.

Topping out at 5-feet-5, he commanded attention whenever he stepped to the podium, tapping his superpowers of persuasion with his signature voice, a crisp baritone that rivaled James Earl Jones. 

Perry died Oct. 6, 2024, at age 85 of kidney disease. But last month, he made one final permanent mark on the county: A meeting room in the heart of government zoning offices was dedicated in his honor. 

The plaque on the newly named “F. Martin ‘Marty’ Perry Conference Room” mentions his work under contract as the county’s first zoning attorney in the early 1970s, at the dawn of an era of transformative growth.

But it also recognizes his more well-known role as a “community leader,” a label meant to highlight his transformative impact as a widely sought and respected land use lawyer with an encyclopedic knowledge of the county’s labyrinthine growth management rules. 

Over five decades, his sharp negotiating skills secured government approvals for thousands of projects that shaped the county — day care centers, churches, office buildings, shopping centers and large housing developments. 

But he was known as much for his meticulous preparation and jovial manner as he was for his selfless mentoring of young lawyers, his many years of service on government advisory boards and his dedication to community groups such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County and the Pine Jog Environmental Education Center. 

“He was a go-to problem solver for any issues that felt too complex to untangle,” Commissioner Gregg Weiss said July 24 at the dedication ceremony.

“And when things got tricky – and in land use they always do – the advice was always the same: Call Marty. Because he’s not only read the fine print. He probably wrote it.”

‘You could never get mad at him’

Three former county commissioners attended the dedication ceremony, recalling Perry’s sharp but friendly demeanor and his impact on the county.

“When you were sitting on the dais, whatever the project was, you could never get mad at him. It was just the way he did it and the way he talked,” said former County Commissioner Karen Marcus, who started working for the county in 1974, about a year after Perry shifted his focus to private-sector clients such as Century Village developer H. Irwin Levy.

“He represented not just developers but friends who had gas stations that were going to be put in front of their homes,” Marcus said. “He’d represent them and probably did it pro bono for them because that’s the kind of person he was.”

And “Marty,” as everyone called him, knew how to have fun. 

He shucked corn at the famous movers-and-shakers barbecues hosted by his client and good friend, the influential dairy farmer Billy Bowman. He’d hop on a kiddie tricycle for a “Battle of the County Stars” charity race to raise money for the families of injured deputies. 

On one rare day in 1987 when two separate projects he pushed were denied at the same zoning hearing, he reappeared at the podium pointing a toy arrow at his chest, joking to commissioners, “It’s been a tough day.”

When not at work, he enjoyed golfing, spending time with his daughter, Martine, and son, Justin, and taking his red 1950 MG convertible for a spin, often to the Waterway Cafe, a favorite hangout near his home in Palm Beach Gardens.

“Marty’s work for the county was not just about codes and ordinances. It was about building a better community,” said Weiss. “He had a tremendous sense of fairness, a belief in good governance and a great dry sense of humor that would make a three-hour meeting seem tolerable, almost enjoyable.”

Early client: singer Perry Como

Francis Martin Perry (he never liked his first name, according to his children) was born in 1938 in northwest Pennsylvania. He was raised in a home above a bar his parents tended in Meadville. 

Serving drinks for nine years at the family-operated watering hole, he “learned how to deal with people,” he told a reporter in 1985, skills that would come in handy after he moved to South Florida. 

His oration talents “emerged during his successful tournament debating years at the University of Miami Law School,” according to a Sun Sentinel article. 

Not long after he was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1966, he landed one of his first high-profile clients: singer Perry Como, in a dispute with a builder over the entertainer’s Tequesta home.  

After serving as private counsel to the county’s zoning board in the early ‘70s, he focused his practice on real estate transactions, land development and governmental relations. At the time, he was one of the few private zoning attorneys in a county run by a group of young public servants known as the “Kiddie Car Gang.” 

Perry, who once recalled how the county’s zoning code in 1967 was 30 pages of mimeographed paper, has said he was geared for litigation but enjoyed the form of advocacy that zoning offered. 

“It was freewheeling,” he told a reporter in 1988, recalling his work in the 1970s. “It depended on how good you were on your feet and how well you knew what you were talking about.”

In those early days, he helped lay the foundation for decades of land planning in a county that would grow from roughly 349,000 people in 1970 to 1.6 million today.

“As we drive past developments, parks and shopping centers, Marty had a part in probably most of them. It’s a good chance his hand was involved somehow, some way in those developments,” Weiss said. 

‘Developers are taking a bum rap’

But it wasn’t always easy. He often sparred with environmentalists and commissioners wary of overdevelopment. 

And by the mid-’80s, some commissioners were raising revolving-door concerns about former county employees — including Perry, land-use attorneys Bill Boose and Alan Ciklin and planners Bob Basehart and Kieran Kilday — using knowledge gained from their years refining the county zoning code to help private developers win approval for projects. 

“I’ve been part of progressive planning over the last 20 years,” Perry told The Palm Beach Post in 1986. “I’m in the well-respected business of providing housing, one of the basic needs of people. On the whole I think developers are taking a bum rap.”

Even his opponents respected his fierce advocacy for clients. 

“He’s the most tenacious zoning attorney around,” Boynton Beach City Attorney Raymond Rey told a Miami Herald reporter in 1988. “He has an amiable manner, but he won’t take no for an answer. He’ll work a project until it’s blood dry.”

Above all, he hated to lose. 

“You lie in bed at night trying to find the key to unlock the opposition to your project,” Perry said in 1985. 

Former County Commissioner Steven Abrams laughed the other day when recalling the way Perry, just before commissioners cast votes, segued from his opponents’ arguments to his: “He’d say, ‘But the reality is …’ And then you knew what the reality was.” 

‘He was the dean’

When he wasn’t pushing client projects, Perry made his mark in other ways. He served on the county’s Impact Fee Review Committee (1993-2003), the Convention Center Advisory Committee (1994-95) and the Land Use Advisory Board Policy Development Task Force (1997-98). 

He also served on the governing board of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, operators of Tri-Rail. And he was a longtime member of the influential Economic Council of Palm Beach County. 

After serving as president of the Palm Beach County Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section from 1973-74, he continued offering advice and guidance throughout his career for up-and-coming legal minds. 

Cliff Hertz, a land use attorney and fellow UM Law School grad, recalled “getting my butt kicked” on a zoning petition one day in the 1990s.

“I was looking down at my shoes. Marty came over and kind of put his arm around me: ‘Look, Cliff, if you win them all, you’re just not taking the hard cases,”’ he recalled with a laugh. 

“He was the dean,” Hertz said. “He was not only respected he was very well liked.” 

Susan Taylor, who started working for Perry in 1999 and became his law partner in 2003, recalled a day early in her career when her boss caught her leaving the office with a bulky binder containing the county’s 1,200-page Uniform Land Development Code.

“He gave me this puzzled look and that famous Marty Perry voice: ‘What on earth are you doing with that?”’ she recalled. 

When Taylor explained she was taking it home to read, Perry burst out laughing. 

“Our practice is not one where you are just going to be digging through this book,” she said he told her. “Each project has to be looked at separately. And oftentimes we’re not going to use this book. We have to think outside the box and come up with solutions.”

He was right, she said. 

“Marty was a problem solver through and through,” she said. “He was always thinking outside the box. There was rarely a challenge he wasn’t willing to take on if he thought there was a solution to it. And sometimes, even if there was a remote possibility, he would take it on.”

One final county approval

After Perry died last fall, Weiss took the lead in asking staff to find a way to honor the legacy of a man who played a significant role in shaping the county.

On May 6, Perry won his final County Commission approval: a unanimous vote to put his name on the same conference room where he spent countless hours with county staff reviewing his clients’ development petitions.  

Less than three months later, about 30 of those closest to him, including his two children, packed “Conference Room 2E-12” at the Verdenia C. Baker Vista Center Complex for a half-hour dedication ceremony. 

“I can’t think of a more appropriate room,” Deputy County Administrator Patrick Rutter said inside the 32-by-20-foot space, with a long table at the center, in the heart of the county’s planning and zoning departments. 

”I think Marty probably owns about 10 percent of this room for all the times we have been here with him and put many, many hours in,” said Rutter, a longtime planner who once headed the department.

After reading a proclamation, Weiss looked out to Perry’s friends and associates. 

“To Marty’s family, we want to thank you for sharing him with us. He gave Palm Beach County much of his time, his brain and his heart, and now in dedicating this room, we are going to give a little space back to him,” he said. 

“May this room be a place where hard work happens, where people come together and where someone always remembers to bring a little bit of Marty’s wit to the table.”

A celebration of life is being planned for later this year.

Editor’s note: The date of Cliff Hertz’ interaction with Marty Perry was corrected after publication.