Judge blocks construction on Trump’s D.C.-area arch after commission’s approval

The National Capital Planning Commission is expected to vote Thursday to approve President Donald Trump’s massive — and controversial — “Triumphal Arch” for Washington, D.C., with construction scheduled to begin almost immediately.

The commission, led by Trump appointees, is considered likely to give the project a green light after a hearing in which numerous area residents had lined up to voice their opposition to the project, which would sit in Memorial Circle between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.

Mark Paoletta, the Office of Management and Budget general counsel who was appointed chairman of the commission in August, said in remarks at the meeting that it was a “national disgrace” that such a memorial had not already been built, and praised Trump’s “monumental vision.”

He said it would be “the grandest arch ever built by mankind.”

Opponents, including the governments of Virginia and the District of Columbia, are seeking an emergency court order blocking the construction from moving forward, arguing the project is illegal.

They’ve already asked a judge to immediately halt any construction in a bid to head off possible legal gamesmanship by the administration, citing its earlier destruction of the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom that includes national security measures.

“It is entirely foreseeable that, once construction begins, Defendants will argue, as they have done in other cases, that an order halting construction would irreparably harm the federal government, pose security risks, and impermissibly alter the status quo they have unilaterally created,” they said. “The Court should not allow this cynical gambit to succeed.”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has asked to be notified after the commission’s vote.

Trump has said the arch would celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary and include a military complex with drones and snipers that he said would be important for national security. The final plans submitted to the commission, however, do not mention drones, ammunition storage or sniper positions.

Preservationists and military veterans first filed suit to block the project earlier this year, arguing it needed to be authorized by Congress and that the site was improper.

“Its location on Memorial Circle would situate the monument on an axis between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, obstructing a line of sight that was designed to represent the unification of the Nation following the Civil War and that has existed for nearly a century,” they said.

Virginia and D.C. filed their own action to stop the project last week, contending it “defies at least five federal statutes,” including one that “generally limits buildings in the District to a maximum height of 130 feet.”

The 250-foot arch “would exceed that limit almost twice over.”

They also argued it would harm both D.C. and Virginia residents.

“The Arch is slated to be built on a busy traffic circle that abuts the border between the jurisdictions, at the center of a historic viewshed, in a river whose environment the District has a statutory responsibility to protect,” their suit said.

“Both the construction of the Arch and the completed monument will disrupt the operations of both jurisdictions, impair their ability to carry out their responsibilities under federal and local law, and require the expenditure of substantial resources to mitigate and address those impacts,” they added.

In court filings, the administration countered that the city and state don’t have standing to sue, and that the project was given the green light by Congress about a century ago, when it “authorized erecting and redesigning 166-foot-tall columns surmounted by statues — exceeding any applicable height limits —and those columns have not yet been built.”

Attorneys for the city and state called those arguments “implausible,” and said those columns had initially been planned to be built with the Memorial Bridge before the idea was dropped.

“As Defendants do not dispute, the Memorial Bridge Act nowhere mentions an arch,” they said.