White House Ballroom Plans Win Key Approval From Planning Commissioners

The White House ballroom has run into some legal setbacks, which are far from resolved. But now we can report that one other procedural hurdle has been surmounted; the National Capital Planning Commission has officially approved the plans for President Trump's White House project.

The commission, which is led by Trump appointees, met last month to evaluate the plans and public comments, many of which were negative. Critics have blasted the project as "appalling," a "monstrosity" and "vulgar" in the public comments.
Will Scharf, the Trump-appointed commission chair, said he personally read every comment submitted to the commission and many of the negative ones were "unresponsive" and "dealt with issues beyond the scope of this commission," such as the ballroom's funding, the demolition process and Trump.
"Considering issues of this sort is not within our mandate," he said. "We are not some sort of free-ranging ballroom justice commission."

We can only imagine what kind of Trump Derangement Syndrome-inspired comments Mr. Sharf had to read through; full credit to him for taking on that unpleasant task, presumably to make sure every procedural T was crossed and I dotted.

One other commissioner objected to the proposed size of the ballroom:

Another commission member, Phil Mendelson, who is the chairman of the D.C. Council, expressed his opposition to the ballroom plans based on the structure's proposed size.
"It's just — I'm trying to be nice here — it's just too large," he said. "It's just too large. And if we can get the same program but not as tall, not competing in height with the main structure, and a condensed footprint, we are better for that."

While it's hard to judge the size of the ballroom from the models and drawings we've seen so far, it is indeed big.

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But then, why shouldn't it be big? Note this remark, from the linked story:

Another commission member appointed by the president, Michael Blair, said during the meeting that Trump was blending "great architecture with great hospitality," in his plans for the ballroom, pointing to the need for a space to welcome visitors like King Charles, who plans to visit the U.S. later this month.
"The King of England will be here at the end of the month, and we will likely dine in tents. When the president was recently in the United Kingdom, they dined in Windsor Castle. It's a little bit different," Blair said. "And you know, we would say that it is not fitting of the presidency or the White House to have to invite the king of our oldest ally, and, you know, perhaps most loyal ally, to come and eat in tents on the White House lawn."

That's a good point.

Look, the various capitals around the world have some kind of equivalent of this, for state dinners, events, and so on. The once-Great Britain has Windsor Castle, as described, and as far as geopolitics goes today, the United Kingdom is, honestly, yesterday's news. We're the United States; we do things bigger and better. This isn't Belgium, or Sweden, or even the UK; this is the United States of America, and we've gone without something this big and impressive in which to fete other world leaders for 250 years.

We're Americans. We go big, or we go home.

This approval is now a done deal. Now, there are still the legal hurdles to surmount, but we might note that the East Wing has already been demolished; it's not like a judge can order it to be put back the way it was.

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