About

MARGERY PERLMUTTER R.A. Esq. is a land use lawyer and architect, and the founding member of URBAN FACTORS. She is the former Chair + Commissioner of the NYC Board of Standards + Appeals. Appointed to the Board by Mayor de Blasio and confirmed by the City Council in 2014, she proudly served the City for eight years as the BSA’s expert architect and land use lawyer, bringing to the position her decades of creative and critical thinking.

Among the many initiatives that the BSA instituted during Ms. Perlmutter’s leadership was the creation of the low-income housing special deference variance that made possible for the first time the development of larger buildings for low-income residents, facilitating development of over 500 units of low-income housing that would not have otherwise been permitted as-of-right. Also, under Ms. Perlmutter’s guidance and careful analytical rationale, all of BSA’s decisions withstood opposing Article 78 challenges in the NYS courts.

Prior to her Board appointment, Perlmutter was a partner at the law firm of Bryan Cave LLP, where, as co-chair of its land use practice, she represented some of the largest for-profit owners, developers, lenders, investors and non-profit institutions in New York City. In addition to handling transactional zoning matters and applications to government agencies for special approvals, she drafted and was instrumental in passage of new and modified legislation at both the city and state levels of government.

Ms. Perlmutter is also a registered architect who, until becoming a lawyer in 1999, was the managing partner of Arté NY, an architecture practice focused on the design of affordable housing and medical facilities. She later served as consultant to NYS DHCR advising NYS on infill low-income housing in abandoned areas of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. 

From 2006 to 2014, Ms. Perlmutter served as one of the eleven commissioners on the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, appointed to that position by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Prior to 2006, she was the Co-Chair of the Landmarks Committee of Manhattan Community Board 8. 

Until the close of 2012, she was a member of the Board of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and served as its Legislative Director, in which role she developed the Chapter’s first public advocacy initiative aimed at engaging the architecture profession in proactive public policy-making. Until 2020 she also sat on the Board of the Storefront for Art + Architecture, an experimental platform for architectural theory, design and policy, managing its governance structure and benefit gala.  

Ms. Perlmutter was a founding partner and manager of one of the city’s first design business incubators, has been a residential + commercial landlord + tenant, and a small business owner.  She understands what it means to develop, finance, design, obtain approvals for + construction manage a project, along with the inherent frustrations. She understands the thrills and realities of business + property ownership.

Ms. Perlmutter has traveled throughout the world and has professional colleagues in many countries. She is a collector of contemporary art + photography and a lover of world music. She is fluent in French — and can manage her way in German.