Planning commission weighs Trump arch as judge reviews construction dispute

Judge consolidates lawsuits as nearly 120 citizens register to speak

The National Capital Planning Commission is set to take up one item on Thursday: whether to grant final approval for a 250-foot arch that President Trump wants at Memorial Circle in Washington, D.C. The online-only meeting is expected to run about five hours because of the volume of public participation, and nearly 120 people have registered to speak. At the same time, District Judge Tanya Chutkan is considering a request to block construction of the project without congressional authorization.

The administration has spent months pressing toward the vote. The entirely Trump-appointed Commission for Fine Arts approved the design in May while it remained incomplete. In September, a federal council that NPR described as packed with Trump allies abruptly ended a historic-preservation review that participants had criticized as rushed. The planning commission approved preliminary site and building plans over the summer, and its new Trump-appointed chair, Mark Paoletta, voiced enthusiastic support in an op-ed last month. NPR reported that the commission was widely expected to approve the arch.

Democratic lawmakers, veterans, historic preservationists and more than 100,000 people have opposed the arch through written comments, local protests and previous commission meetings. Nearly 120 registrants is an unusually high number for such a meeting, and NPR described the turnout as a symbol of the widespread public opposition. Opponents say the structure would obstruct an important view, insult service members buried at nearby Arlington National Cemetery and add a layer of risk to notoriously complicated D.C. airspace. Critics also see the project as part of Trump’s effort to memorialize himself in the capital.

The White House has repeatedly said the arch will “enhance the visitor experience at Arlington National Cemetery” and be “one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world.” Trump, speaking from the Reflecting Pool on Monday in his last in-person remarks before the midterm elections, said, “It will be one of the great things we’ve ever done,” and highlighted the project alongside other D.C. construction plans.

The proposed arch would rise 250 feet at Memorial Circle, a traffic circle on the bridge linking the National Mall to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. It would stand at more than twice the height of the nearby Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service said the structure would disrupt the historical significance of dozens of nearby monuments. Renderings submitted to the commission show a white concrete arch topped by three golden statues, including a winged woman holding a torch with an eternal flame.

The eternal flame was one of the recommendations of the Federal Aviation Administration, which said in September that the arch would not pose an airspace hazard as long as it was continuously lit in a prescribed way. Aviation safety experts told NPR that the unconventional lighting recommendations added risks involving glare and fire. Days after the FAA report, Trump said on social media that the arch would serve as a military complex housing snipers and ammunition. Legal experts told NPR the abrupt change appeared intended to recast the arch as a national-security matter; they also said that argument had helped the administration proceed with its White House ballroom.

The final renderings sent to the planning commission did not mention drones or snipers. In a seven-page declaration submitted to the court the previous week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the arch a “generational national defense opportunity.” At a Friday hearing, Chutkan expressed skepticism about the government’s urgency and national-security claims and questioned how military equipment could be installed alongside what the government has said could be as many as 22,000 civilian visitors a day. “The arch is somehow supposed to deter assassination attempts on the president?” she said in response to the government attorney’s answers. “It’s going to be completed three years from now.”

The underlying lawsuit was brought by Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian who argue the arch is unlawful without congressional approval. The plaintiffs asked Chutkan to issue a preliminary injunction before Thursday’s meeting blocking the administration from “taking any steps to construct, or to direct or facilitate construction, of any structure in Memorial Circle, absent congressional authorization” while the case proceeds. Advocacy, historic-preservation and conservation organizations filed a supporting brief. The administration has not sought congressional approval for the project; instead, it cites Congress’ century-old authorization of two columns on the traffic circle that were never built.

One of the administration’s primary arguments is that the veterans lack standing to sue, and it points to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the White House ballroom case. Public Citizen, which represents the veterans, says the two cases are very different. Over the weekend, the Democratic-led governments of D.C. and Virginia filed their own lawsuit, and Chutkan has consolidated it with the original case. Their 55-page complaint calls the arch “flagrantly illegal” and details what the jurisdictions describe as a “battery of irreplaceable injuries” their communities would suffer “as soon as construction begins — from disruptions of local traffic to environmental degradation to threats to security and emergency preparedness.” The complaint argues that the arch lacks congressional authorization, violates federal environmental and historic-preservation laws and conflicts with D.C.’s building-height restrictions.

The governments say the arch would “substantially disrupt daily life in the capital region,” including by forcing local governments to divert resources away from other priorities. The lawsuit says an arch at that location would increase traffic and hinder emergency response along one of the main corridors between D.C. and Virginia, complicate the flight path at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and threaten local wildlife — all things the governments say they would have to spend time and resources addressing. They also identify construction risks, including 320-foot cranes operating in complex airspace and excavation sediment entering the Potomac River. Their complaint says, “These harms cannot be remedied if construction of the Arch proceeds,” adding that an unlawful project of this scale would be difficult to undo.

The Trump administration says construction would take two to three years, with crews working 20 hours a day, year-round. In a court filing last week, it said the first six months would involve underground excavation and foundation work and argued that a judge need not intervene at this stage because the loss of the view would not yet be relevant. Lawyers for D.C. and Virginia responded that the administration “would suffer no cognizable injury if required to wait before beginning construction of an illegal monument.” Their filing said, “Defendants cannot plausibly claim they have an urgent need to begin building the Arch 101 years after enactment of the statute that they (wrongly) claim authorized its construction and over one year after the President announced his intention to build it.”

On Monday, Chutkan ordered the government to notify the court within one hour of any arch decision by the planning commission, National Park Service or Department of the Interior. She also required notice within 30 minutes of “any activity related to or in preparation for the construction of an arch on Memorial Circle.” The timing suggested she might wait to rule until after the commission meeting, scheduled to adjourn at 6 p.m. ET. On Tuesday, the administration asked her to clarify and modify the order to require 24 hours’ notice instead, saying that although its staff is “working diligently (including nights and weekends) on this matter,” it takes time for decisions to be “communicated through the various chains and then appropriately drafted into a notice suitable for filing with the Court.”

Plaintiffs opposed that request and compared the situation with D.C.’s East Potomac Park, where the government gave a judge less than a full day’s notice before cutting down 430 trees during a holiday weekend. The plaintiffs’ filing said, “Indeed, Defendants recently demonstrated just how much they can change the status quo in a matter of 24 hours.” Chutkan later clarified her wording but kept the timeline. Hours later, on Wednesday night, the government told the court that Grunley Construction Company, a Maryland-based firm, “may be — but is not necessarily — arranging off-site preparations for construction mobilization in anticipation of permit approval.”

The government had told Chutkan late last month that construction could commence “as early as” Thursday if the planning commission and Interior approved it. The administration says a successful commission vote would leave only sign-off from its own Department of the Interior to break ground. The arch still lacks congressional authorization, and the requested injunction remained an unresolved legal question as the commission prepared to vote.

The first registered speaker on the meeting agenda is Michael Lemmon, the veteran and retired foreign service officer for whom the lawsuit is named. He has said he hopes to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery one day — but not if there is an arch. “The thought of being interred in the shadow of what I believe to be a personal vanity project is profoundly disturbing to me,” he wrote in a court filing in February, when the case was first filed. Critics have accused Trump of trying to rush approval before the midterm elections. Democratic lawmakers filed a supporting brief, with several vowing they would not let the arch proceed if their party retakes control of Congress.