President Donald Trump’s administration will attempt Thursday to override more than a century of legal precedent to clear the way for a massive monument the president has his heart set on developing, according to a new report.
The National Capital Planning Commission—loaded with Trump loyalists—is scheduled to vote Thursday on a radical reinterpretation of the 1910 Height of Buildings Act, according to the New York Times.
“The effort to get around the Height of Buildings Act is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to bypass federal law or norms in pursuit of the president’s breakneck construction spree,” the Times reported, “which involves more than $1 billion in construction.”
The administration’s argument: the landmark federal law capping Washington buildings at roughly 130 feet was never intended to apply to federal construction projects, and certainly not to Trump’s proposed 250-foot Triumphal Arch.
“The act does not reference federal buildings,” the Interior Department claimed in a memo to the commission, insisting, “Congress did not intend” for the law to restrict federal projects the way it has been consistently interpreted for nearly 90 years.
“Will Scharf, the Trump-appointed chairman of the commission who also serves as the White House staff secretary, surprised many planning and architecture experts in the city by arguing last month that the height law did not apply to the federal government, and should be viewed instead as part of Washington’s local zoning code,” the Times is reporting before adding, “Since the law was passed, and since the planning commission began applying it in 1938, it has seldom if ever been treated that way.”
“What’s the citation that they are relying on?” Nancy MacWood, a former chair of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, asked. “I can’t find anything. Nobody else can find anything.” According to the Times, the Interior Department memo points to an 1899 law that did exempt federal buildings from height restrictions. But that exemption was explicitly repealed when Congress passed the 1910 Height of Buildings Act. The original 1910 text contains zero language restoring that federal exception.
“That solution may stretch the intent of the height act by creating a towering 100-foot-tall golden statue that could appear poised to tip off its pedestal,” the Times report suggested, citing experts. “And such a resolution may be unsatisfying to the president, too. Any changes that make the archway smaller would further obscure views meant to be seen through the arch. And the president, who has been deeply involved in the smallest details of his construction projects, has rejected revisions to the arch even from his hand-picked appointees on another review panel.”