National Capital Planning Commission votes to approve Trump's "largely unpopular White House ballroom plans."
Planning commission gives Trump’s White House ballroom plan the green light
The National Capital Planning Commission on Thursday voted to approve President Donald Trump's largely unpopular White House ballroom plans.
https://www.ms.now/news/trump-ballroom-approved-commission
Apr. 2, 2026, 2:17 PM EDT
By
Sydney Carruth
Donald Trump’s handpicked National Capital Planning Commission voted Thursday to authorize the president’s plan to erect a gilded 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom in place of the historic East Wing, which was destroyed last fall to make way for the ballroom.
The commission, helmed by White House staff secretary Will Scharf, was widely expected to vote to approve the $400 million ballroom. Thursday’s vote also passed an amendment to the original ballroom blueprint that removed a proposed staircase from the south portico and added a switchback feature to a planned southwest staircase.
But the construction plan still faces a new legal hurdle after a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from breaking ground on the ballroom and further demolishing the East Wing.
Demolition of the East Wing began in October. The project drew widespread backlash from preservationists and the public, who condemned the proposed ballroom in more than 35,000 pages of public comment released by the commission ahead of last month’s meeting.
“I wept when I saw the rubble where once stood the beautiful East Wing that welcomed visitors from around the world to the nation’s capital, to the Peoples’ House, The White House,” Michele Lagueux wrote in a comment submitted on Feb. 17. Others called the plans “upsetting,” “appalling,” “fascist” and “too massive.”
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