WASHINGTON — The National Capital Planning Commission voted 8-4 on Thursday night to approve final site and building plans for the 250-foot Triumphal Arch that the Trump administration wants to build at Memorial Circle, and a federal judge then barred any construction from starting for 14 days. The restraining order, issued about an hour after the vote, leaves the administration’s plans approved on paper and on hold in court.
The White House welcomed the commission’s action and said it expects to prevail. “The White House commends the National Capital Planning Commission’s decision to fully approve President Trump’s historic vision to build a much needed Triumphal Arch in Washington, D.C.,” spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement posted on X, according to NBC News. “We are confident we will be fully vindicated as this litigation proceeds and look forward to seeing the completion of this magnificent Arch — a tribute to 250 years of American greatness.”
The Interior Department submitted the plans, and the commission’s Nov. 5 action document says the commission “supports the purpose of the project to celebrate America’s Semiquincentennial.” The commission also adopted the National Park Service’s October 2026 environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact, and it agreed that Congress’s 1925 authorization for the Arlington Memorial Bridge plan included elements above the 1910 Height of Buildings Act limit, leaving Interior discretion to revise the design. Commission chairman Mark Paoletta, who is also the top lawyer at the Office of Management and Budget, called the project a “historic vision” and said it would be the “grandest arch ever built by mankind,” CBS News reported.
What the plans call for
According to documents filed with the commission and summarized by CBS News, the arch would stand 166 feet tall and be topped by three gilded figures, bringing its height to 250 feet. It would have an observation deck, and the administration has estimated 2,000 to 22,400 visitors a day. The Federal Aviation Administration found it would pose “no hazard to air navigation,” with conditions for safety lighting. Construction is expected to take about three years. CBS News reported that it is unclear what the project will cost and who will pay for it.
Mr. Trump has said the arch would include a military complex. The final plans do not mention drones, ammunition storage or sniper positions, NBC News reported; Greg Wischer, Interior’s deputy chief of staff, told the commission the current “design is capable of hosting national security functions,” and the details are under seal in the court case.
The commission received more than 1,300 public comments, most of them opposed, CBS News reported, and heard more than 100 speakers during about nine hours of public comment. Reps. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., spoke in favor; Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, called the project “illegal.” The four commissioners who voted no were not appointed by Mr. Trump, NBC News reported.
The court order
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over two consolidated suits, granted a temporary restraining order that bars the government from “construction, excavation, demolition, land-disturbance, utility installation, or roadway-closure activity, or any other construction-related activity” at the site for 14 days. One suit was filed by three Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian, led by Michael Lemmon (No. 1:26-cv-544). The other was filed by the District of Columbia and Virginia (No. 1:26-cv-3838), which argue the project “defies at least five federal statutes,” including the District’s 130-foot height limit, and would disrupt traffic, emergency services and the Potomac.
In a 33-page opinion, Judge Chutkan wrote that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing the government did not follow required legal processes, and that the District and Virginia likely have standing because of “tangible economic harms” from traffic problems at the site, CBS News reported. She also wrote that “the harm is certain,” noting the administration had said it was ready to begin construction almost immediately after the vote.
The Justice Department has argued that the plaintiffs lack standing, that Congress authorized the work in 1925 and that the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling in the White House ballroom case, in which plaintiffs were found likely to lack standing, should guide the court. The government’s filings describe the 1925 act as authorizing 166-foot columns topped by statues that were never built. Judge Chutkan rejected that reading. “Merely to state this argument is to reveal its flaws,” she wrote, adding that “the sheer improbability that a 100-year-old statute would contain authority, unknown to every previous administration, to erect a 250-foot arch at a principal location in the Nation’s capital indicates how far Defendants must stretch to justify this project.”
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery, applauded the ruling. “This fight is not over,” he said in a statement. “While this decision prevents Donald Trump from immediately implementing his plans to create a monument to his own ego, the courts and Congress must put in place permanent safeguards.”
What happens next
The order runs 14 days from Nov. 5, which puts its expiration around Nov. 19 unless the judge extends or replaces it. The order also required the government to notify contractors and others working on the site of the restraint, and, according to JURIST’s account, to report on its compliance on Nov. 9. Judge Chutkan had earlier ordered the government to give notice within one hour of any commission vote and within 30 minutes of any activity in preparation for construction.
In earlier filings the government committed to give 14 days’ notice on the public docket before any construction, or demolition in preparation for construction, begins after the National Park Service issues a final agency decision. The docket in Lemmon v. Trump is where a ruling on the veterans’ pending motion for a preliminary injunction, any government appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, or a new briefing schedule would appear.
Leave a Reply