The federal committee charged by Congress with overseeing federal construction is preparing to host a presentation on the White House ballroom building next month, the first public hearing for the controversial project being closely managed by President Donald Trump.
The National Capital Planning Commission last week added the “East Wing Modernization Project” to its tentative Jan. 8 agenda, describing the presentation as an information session led by the White House that will kick off months of planned reviews.
“This is an opportunity for the project applicant to present the project and for Commissioners to ask questions and provide general observations prior to formal review which we anticipate this spring,” reads a document posted by the commission this week. The document does not mention the new ballroom, instead referring to the “East Wing modernization.”
The commission’s move came after U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon last week ordered the Trump administration to submit its plans to the NCPC and the Commission of Fine Arts, another federal review panel, by the end of December.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private nonprofit charged by Congress with helping preserve historical buildings, sued the administration this month and sought an emergency halt to construction, arguing that the White House had failed to undertake legally required reviews, including presenting plans to the NCPC and the Commission of Fine Arts, before demolishing the East Wing.
“The Court will hold the Government to its word,” Leon, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote in his order last week.
Because it’s an informational presentation, the White House will present the project, and NCPC commissioners will have an opportunity to give feedback and ask questions, according to the commission document. The White House has not submitted materials related to the project, members of the public won’t have a chance to tell the committee their opinions and the 12-member body won’t vote for approval, the document states. Officials have said those steps will happen at future meetings.
Trump administration officials said last week in court documents that crews will start aboveground construction on the ballroom no sooner than April — a date that rests on the commission approving the project before then.
The NCPC is led by Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary and Trump’s former personal lawyer whom the president appointed as commission chair in July, and its members tilt toward Trump. The president appointed two other White House officials to the body, and the commission also includes nine seats apportioned to sitting Cabinet secretaries and other local and federal officials.
The review process for the ballroom building is dramatically different from past projects. Large projects have previously undergone a rigorous, four-step review that starts long before any physical work was done. Planners at agencies wanting to build or renovate begin by meeting with NCPC staff, sometimes years before demolition or site preparation, kicking off a process that ends with a presentation at a public meeting, former NCPC officials and construction entities have said. At each stage, commissioners and staff have given feedback on details including aesthetics and environmental impacts.
The Trump White House has effectively skipped some of those steps. They plan to shrink down to months a timeline that took nearly two years for a White House security fence that was significantly smaller than the ballroom. The 3,500-foot perimeter fence approval process involved five public meetings, during which the commission ensured the fence comported with federal environmental laws and “the historic and symbolic importance of the White House and the surrounding grounds,” according to NCPC documents.
In contrast, Trump has overseen a three-month transformation of a large chunk of the White House grounds with no oversight from the NCPC. In mid-September, crews started clearing foliage and cutting down trees. Over a three-day period in late October, the president shocked almost everyone by demolishing the East Wing. And by early December, workers had installed a crane, and pile drivers were working throughout the day, with the White House saying the teams were working to create the underground infrastructure necessary to support the building.
Scharf has asserted that the NCPC review process covers only “vertical” construction — not demolition or site preparation. Critics have blasted Scharf’s argument as absurd, because those three steps are so closely linked — and because part of the commission’s duty in reviewing projects is to consider the preservation of buildings that already exist.
NCPC records show the commission has approved site development plans for previous projects, including the perimeter fence and a tennis pavilion built during Trump’s first term. In both cases, agencies received the commission’s approval before starting site work.
The NCPC nevertheless adopted Scharf’s argument in the document it published Tuesday outlining its review process, saying the law doesn’t give it authority over “the demolition of buildings or general site preparation.”
Lawmakers and watchdog groups have repeatedly called for more transparency around the project. Among other issues, critics have questioned the solicitation of private donations to pay for the ballroom — and demanded to know whether anything was promised in return.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent letters this week demanding more information from several attendees of a White House dinner in October to honor ballroom donors. Blumenthal asked them to clarify if they contributed to the project, and under what terms, noting that the White House has acknowledged that it has not publicly identified all the donors to the ballroom project.
“The American people are entitled to all the relevant facts about who is funding the most substantial construction project at the White House in recent history,” Blumenthal wrote.
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