A preservation group is “gobsmacked” that a federal council cut short the review of President Donald Trump’s proposed arch while conceding the public’s “significant concerns.”
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, a consulting party to the review, used the phrase in written comments obtained by MeidasTouch correspondent Scott MacFarlane, who shared them on X Monday, a day before a scheduled meeting with consulting parties.
The comments respond to a Thursday letter from Travis Voyles, vice chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, that ended the arch’s federal historic preservation review, known as Section 106.
“Mr. Voyles has written a singularly audacious letter. And, after TCLF was invited to only one consulting party meeting for what would be the second largest monument in Washington, D.C., to say that we’re gobsmacked is an understatement,” the foundation wrote.
“In recognition of the public’s significant concerns regarding the adverse effects the undertaking would pose to historic properties, we are hereby terminating consultation,” Voyles wrote, in a line the foundation called “extraordinary and dangerous.”
“Rather than address the ‘public’s significant concerns regarding the adverse effects’ on one of the nation’s most revered and symbolically important cultural landscapes through an authentic public engagement process that doesn’t foreclose avoidance as a precondition, the administration through its proxy, the ACHP, has decided the public’s role is meaningless, unimportant, and of no value whatsoever,” the foundation argued.
Two days before the termination, the National Park Service, which is overseeing the project, told the council that more consultation was unlikely to produce an agreement to resolve the arch’s harm to historic sites, the letter said.
The agency also said alternatives to avoid or reduce that harm “would alter the fundamental nature” of the project and fail to meet its goals, according to the letter.
Earlier that week, historic preservation officials for D.C. and Virginia refused to sign off on the Park Service’s plan to offset the 250-foot arch’s harm, calling the push to approve it “premature,” Politico reported.
The termination process itself is “rare,” according to Politico, and experts said it is especially unusual for the council, rather than the agency behind a project, to cut off consultation.
Sara Bronin, a former chair of the council, told The Atlantic that ending consultation is very unusual. She said she used that power only once during her year as chair, for a wind-energy project.
“By prematurely terminating consultation on the Triumphal Arch proposed by President Trump, the ACHP and interim chair Travis Voyles are making a farce of the Section 106 process,” Bronin wrote in an email to The Atlantic.
Trump reshaped the council last year, removing six members appointed by Democratic presidents before their terms ended and replacing them with his own appointees, Politico reported.
“Mr. Voyles’ statement can be read as a prelude to and consistent with the ACHP’s intention to turn Section 106 into a regulatory eunuch,” the foundation warned.
In July, the council voted to rewrite the Section 106 rules in a way that would let agencies decide on their own whether public participation in a review is in the public interest, The Washington Post reported.
The foundation said the revised rules eliminate at least 18 separate references to public participation, access and notification.
Four days before the review ended, Trump announced on Truth Social that the arch would also house ammunition, drones and snipers, The Atlantic reported.
Bronin told the outlet the new military role should trigger a new Section 106 review. The Park Service’s earlier study of the arch’s harm covered a monument, not a military facility, the magazine reported.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation also told the Park Service last week that its plan to offset the arch’s harm must be completely redone after the military announcement, according to Politico.
Three military veterans and an architectural historian are also suing to stop the arch, according to court records.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has ordered the administration to give 48 hours’ notice before any arch-related work at the site and 14 days’ notice before construction, the records show.
Consulting parties have until the end of Tuesday to submit their views, the letter said. The council aims to send its final comments to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum by Oct. 7.
That timeline could allow the arch to win final approval from the National Capital Planning Commission in November, according to The Atlantic.
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