ewsba.se
A federal judge has temporarily blocked construction of President Donald Trump’s triumphal arch just hours after a hastily convened planning commission granted the project final approval.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a restraining order Friday morning halting construction of the 250-foot arch for 14 days, giving the court time to consider lawsuits challenging the project’s legality. The order bans all activities related to the project, including excavation, utility installation, and road closures around its proposed located, Memorial Circle near Arlington Cemetery. The administration has been given a Monday, November 9, deadline to guarantee its compliance with the ruling.
The National Capital Planning Commission, composed mostly of Trump loyalists, approved the project on Thursday after a nine-hour virtual hearing in which more than 100 people testified, including military veterans, D.C. preservationists, and family members of those buried at Arlington. The outcome was widely expected, prompting opponents to seek federal court intervention before the review process had concluded. Their appeal succeeded: Judge Chutkan will consider several independent legal challenges to the arch, including one brought by the governments of D.C. and Virginia and another by Vietnam War veterans.
The lawsuits argue that the Trump administration bypassed the necessary congressional approval and failed to adequately assess the project’s potential impacts on the surrounding landscape. Critics have raised concerns about air and noise pollution, traffic disruptions, and other problems stemming from the structure’s height and location. They argue that the arch would interfere with flightpaths from DCA and, particularly controversially, disrupt the carefully cultivated visual relationship between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
According to an October investigation by the Washington Post, which used a to-scale 3D model to map the arch’s shadows, the structure would cast shadows across more than 75,000 graves at Arlington over the course of the year, as well as several major memorials, including those dedicated to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and the Vietnam Veterans and Korean War Veterans memorials.
The Trump administration has argued that the arch would serve as a necessary commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary of independence and enhance security in Washington, D.C. In recent weeks, Trump proposed that the structure could double as a “military complex” equipped for snipers and drones. The final plan submitted to the commission, however, reportedly omitted those details.
Mark Paoletta, a White House official and the commission’s chairman, called the empty space at Memorial Circle a “national disgrace” on Thursday and praised the president’s “historic vision.”
Construction is projected to take two to three years, with crews working nearly around the clock, according to the Trump administration.