Approval for Trump's Ballroom Delayed Amid Overwhelming Public Opposition

How much is a “large amount”? When the latest ballroom plans by architect Shalom Baranes Architects were made publicly available last month, the NCPC started taking feedback from the public and received more than 32,000 comments—the vast majority of them in opposition of the proposed 89,000-square-foot ballroom, technically called the East Wing Modernization Project. A PDF gathering the public comments, made available ahead of the March 5 meeting on the NCPC website, numbers 9,388 pages!

Furthermore, 104 individuals registered to speak at the meeting—enough speakers to extend the meeting into Friday and push the vote to the commission's next meeting, on April 2. Some notables among the registered speakers include architect Carl Elefante, known for coining the phrase “the greenest building is…one that is already built”; Carol Quillen, from the National Trust for Historic Preservation: Priya Jain, from the Society of Architectural Historians; and Rebecca Miller, from the DC Preservation League.

It remains to be seen if the delay will have any impact on the commission's vote, which was expected to be in favor of Trump's ballroom, which has been on a construction fast track since the former East Wing was demolished last fall. A number of the public comments during the meeting touched on the private fundraising for the project, the lack of approvals ahead of demolition, the handpicked nature of the NCPC itself, and other issues outside of the NCPC's scope of design and planning. While the commission is letting the public voice concerns like these, many of them are not considered relevant to, and therefore won't impact, the vote.

In the context of the East Wing Modernization Project, the commission is focused almost exclusively on the public's experience of the White House, which outside of public tours (if and when they resume) is limited to distant views from the north and the south due the property's large security perimeter—vantage points where existing trees block some or parts of the proposed ballroom. Most of the pages in the latest submission package illustrate how the ballroom will not compete with the central, executive mansion when seen from public ways, while a few pages depict closer views (like the rendering above) that the public would not see firsthand. 

The East Wing Modernization Project received approval from US Commission of Fine Arts last month, not long after Trump appointed all seven members of the commission. The last remaining approval therefore is from the NCPC, whose commission is anchored by three Trump appointees: William Scharf, Stuart Levenbach, and Michael Blair. Beyond the democratic expression of opinions on the ballroom project, which may only delay the expected approval, challenges to the project include a new lawsuit filed last week by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (its previous lawsuit over the project was rejected) and, separately, a report from Public Citizen, a government watchdog, arguing that the Trump-appointed commissioners should recuse themselves from the April 2 vote.