Trump's proposed arch gets preliminary approval from key agency

The commission heard testimony from dozens of people opposed to the arch.

President Donald Trump's proposed 250-foot triumphal arch received initial approval on Thursday from the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) after hours of public testimony against the project.

The NCPC, a federal agency led by Trump's hand-picked appointees, voted to approve preliminary site and building plans for the structure to be constructed at Memorial Circle in front of Arlington National Cemetery.

A vote on final approval could come at the commission's next meeting in September, said Will Scharf, Trump’s White House staff secretary who serves as the commission’s chair.

"I think commemorating America's 250th anniversary is important," Scharf said. "I think that the proposed arch is a fitting commemoration of 250 years."

Ahead of Thursday's hearing, NCPC agency staff recommended initial approval but also a series of revisions to the project to comply with the Height of Buildings Act. The century-old federal law restricts building heights in Washington, D.C., to preserve the city's skyline.

Trump's proposed arch would be more than twice as tall as the 99-foot Lincoln Memorial, and taller than France's Arc de Triomphe.

Scharf said he anticipates a "vigorous debate" to take place with respect to the Height of Buildings Act as the commission considers the arch project.

Before the commission voted on initial approval, it heard comments from more than two dozen people both in person and virtually, most of whom were vocal in their opposition to the arch.

"I come to you as the person this arch claims to honor, and the person raised to protect what it would destroy. It betrays both," said Linsay Burnett, who said she served as a combat photographer and public affairs sergeant in Iraq.

"Under this plan, families would lower their loved ones into the ground to the sound of pile drivers. Taps against a concrete pump. We ask our dead for everything. The least we owe them is silence, and for three years we would deny them even that," she said.

The National Park Service plans to have construction take place 20 hours per day over the next two to three years, according to planning documents released by the Department of the Interior.

Cynthia Morrison, who described herself as a Gold Star mother from North Carolina, expressed concern about the arch obstructing the designed views of Arlington National Cemetery and distracting from its meaning.

"Those are grounds I have walked with my son as he was beginning to think about his own path in life," she said. "When he was in the eighth grade, we watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier together. We stood among those rows of headstones and reflected on what service and sacrifice truly mean. And even after that experience, he chose to serve this country."

"For me, that view is not merely visual, it is remembrance, it represents continuity and sacrifice, and the lived reality of military service and loss," Morrison said. "I'm deeply concerned that placing a large monument in this corridor would alter that experience by shifting the focus away from Arlington itself and toward the structure."

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