The National Trust for Historic Preservation has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the Trump administration’s plan to add a large new ballroom to the White House’s east wing, challenging a proposed 90,000-square-foot expansion to the presidential complex. According to Al Jazeera, the suit was filed on Friday.
The Trust says the project would alter the historic character of the White House and that required review procedures were skipped. In its complaint, the organization alleges multiple legal violations: failure to submit plans to the National Capital Planning Commission, omission of an environmental assessment, and lack of required congressional approval for construction within a federal park. The filing also argues the administration’s actions conflict with the Constitution’s property clause, which gives Congress authority over federal property. National Trust President Carol Quillen said the group felt compelled to act because the White House is among the country’s most important civic symbols.
Before filing suit, the Trust had asked federal agencies to pause construction in letters to the National Capital Planning Commission, the National Park Service and the Commission of Fine Arts. The administration has defended the project as lawful and has not issued a formal public response to the lawsuit in the reporting cited by Al Jazeera; White House Communications Director Steven Cheung dismissed the National Trust as “run by a bunch of loser Democrats and liberal donors playing political games.”
Demolition work on part of the east wing began in October. The new venue is now expected to seat nearly 1,000 people, up from an earlier estimate of 650, and projected costs have grown from roughly $200 million to about $300 million; officials say private donors are funding the construction. If completed, the ballroom would be the most significant physical alteration to the White House in the Trump era and would exceed the building’s current roughly 55,000-square-foot footprint. Preservationists and other critics warn the expansion would overwhelm the proportions of the east and west wings, which have remained largely unchanged since the early 19th century.
