Trump’s ballroom gets the green light from loyalist-stacked commission

By Betsy Klein, Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s sprawling ballroom project officially got the green light on Thursday from a board that oversees planning for federal buildings and land, marking the latest step in an accelerated process that now faces some legal uncertainty.

Despite more than 32,000 public comments overwhelmingly opposed to the project, the National Capital Planning Commission was stacked with Trump loyalists who voted in favor of the measure.

Thursday’s vote clears a hurdle, but the ballroom’s future is unclear after a federal judge threw a wrench into Trump’s plans when he ruled earlier this week that construction must stop until it’s approved by Congress.

“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” said Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, in his ruling Tuesday.

He added: “Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!” The Trump administration has already appealed Leon’s ruling.

The judge delayed implementation of his ruling for two weeks, telling the White House that any above-ground construction during that time may have to be reversed if a higher court doesn’t quickly overturn his decision.

It’s still unclear if the legal wrangling will stall the construction or if Trump’s lawyers will convince a different federal court to let that work proceed for now, keeping the project in a holding pattern for the moment.

Meanwhile, experts have raised concerns about the scale and scope of the addition to the White House grounds, along with the introduction of Corinthian columns, and the asymmetric changes it will impose on the existing once-circular driveway. But the ballroom has been on the fast track since the East Wing was demolished last October to make way for the massive new structure, which is expected to cost between $300 and 400 million.

Trump has maintained that the ballroom, which is being privately funded, isn’t subject to any oversight and that he should be able to continue with the changes without any serious scrutiny.

NCPC chairman Will Scharf, a top Trump aide, heralded the project, saying in his remarks ahead of the vote that he believes that, in time, “this ballroom will be considered every bit as much of a national treasure as the other key components of the White House.”

Scharf also sought to push back on criticism of the project. Space to accommodate 1,000 people, he said, is “not an unreasonable number programmatically,” adding it could be needed for entertainment, speeches and displays. As for the height of the structure, he said that the project “befits a high ceiling.” And regarding criticism of the president, he noted that Trump “will get very limited use of this structure before the end of his term.”

Other Trump-aligned commissioners praised the president’s role in the project. But DC Council chairman Phil Mendelson, who serves on the commission in an ex-officio capacity, offered the most substantive negative feedback as he lamented what he described as a “rushed process.”

“I think there’s a lot of value to the iterative process and we’ve not had that,” Mendelson said.

He continued: “It is possible to build a 1,000-person ballroom that, unlike the plan currently under review, truly honors the iconic status, the primacy and historic significance of the People’s House.”

He also said he “didn’t get a persuasive answer” from the architect on why the building needs to be so tall.

“I’m trying to be nice here: It’s just too large,” Mendelson said.

Commissioner Linda Argo echoed Mendelson’s comments, expressing concerns about “a rush to approve something this significant.”

Mendelson voted no, Argo voted “present,” and commissioner Arrington Dixon also voted “present.” All of the other commissioners approved the project, and it passed.

Trump’s personal interest

The remarkable speed with which the multimillion-dollar project has progressed has underscored an emboldened Trump’s personal interest in unveiling a finished ballroom before the end of his second term, part of a broader effort to remake the White House and Washington to suit his style and taste. He has promised it will be complete in the summer of 2028, months before he leaves office.

The president, a former real estate developer, has been deeply involved in this project, from floor plans to marble selection, underscoring that it has been a key priority.

“I’m so busy that I don’t have time to do this,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday as he presented mockups of the new structure.

He added: “I’m fighting wars and other things, but this is very important, because this is going to be with us for a long time.”

The project has already received signoff from another key body, the Commission of Fine Arts, which is also composed of Trump allies.

At the last NCPC meeting, the commission heard dozens of experts – architects, historians, preservationists and former White House staffers; representatives from key groups like the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the DC Preservation League, and the American Institute of Architects; and concerned citizens who voiced opposition to the project. Just one person, the owner of a local historic event venue, spoke in support of it.

Public Citizen, a government watchdog organization, is already questioning the validity of the NCPC vote. The group alleges in a report that Trump’s installation of a trio of top allies to the commission – Scharf as chair, Office of Management and Budget associate director Stuart Levenbach as vice-chair, and deputy chief of staff James Blair as a commissioner – violates the law. The three White House staffers, the report says, “fail to have any of the ‘experience in city or regional planning’ the law requires appointees to have.”

“I was appointed because I did have the qualifications necessary to serve on the commission,” Scharf said at the March meeting, pointing to experience as policy director to the governor of Missouri and calling the claims “insulting.”

Neither Blair nor Levenbach responded to Public Citizen’s assertions.

Other Trump projects face legal challenges

Trump’s ballroom isn’t the only major vanity project he’s planning for DC that is facing serious legal challenges. The president has proposed a 250-foot tall American version of Paris’ L’Arc de Triomphe, which would be approximately the equivalent of a 16- to 20-story building, and sit in a historically significant area between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

Just after the commission blessed the White House project on Thursday, a federal judge expressed deep concerns about the possibility that the lightning speed manner in which destruction of the East Wing was carried out last year could repeat itself before she’s able to weigh in on the legality of Trump’s push to build the “Independence Arch” on an island situated on the Potomac River.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan repeatedly stressed that she’s wary of such quick construction happening on the site of the proposed arch while the case was in its early stages and seemed convinced that Trump’s public statements about the project indicate that work could begin at any time.

“The president has said he’s getting his arch. And as we’ve seen from Judge Leon’s case with the ballroom, the president gets what he wants, even if you wake up one morning with bulldozers at the White House,” she said at a hearing in the arch case.

Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, seemed especially concerned about the fact that while a National Park Service official told her in a sworn statement that the arch project is still in a “conceptual phase,” numerous public statements in recent months from Trump and news articles have indicated that the president wants to have it completed by July 4.

“What you’re saying is pay no attention to the man in the corner. And that’s a little difficult when the man in the corner is the chief executive tweeting,” she told a Justice Department lawyer arguing that Trump’s statements should be ignored in the ongoing litigation over the arch.

“A statement of the president of the United States is certainly going to carry some weight here,” Chutkan said later. “There were similar statements that were made about the ballroom.”

The judge is weighing a request from a group of Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian to block construction of the arch until Congress gives its approval.

She declined to rule from the bench on Thursday, instead asking both sides to inform her by Friday afternoon whether they could reach an agreement under which the government would hold off for now on breaking ground at the site of the planned arch.

“What I do not want to happen is for ground to be broken while this case is pending,” she said.

Other cases challenging Trump’s plan to temporarily shut down the Kennedy Center for a major renovation are also pending at the federal courthouse in DC, as well as a lawsuit over his desire to turn a public golf course in Washington into private, high-end links.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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