Ballroom Architect Says Trump May Alter West Wing, Too |
Even on the most slapdash HGTV home-renovation shows, contractors come up with a building plan prior to “demo day.” But the unveiling of new plans for Donald Trump’s White House ballroom at a meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission on Thursday underscored that the details of the project are still being worked out three months after the East Wing was reduced to rubble.
Despite the handful of protesters outside, the meeting was not obviously political or heated — largely because Trump stacked the NCPC with sympathetic appointees well before the ballroom project started. While federal preservation law says the Commission must vet even minor renovation projects at the White House, newly appointed commission chair Will Scharf — who is also a top White House aide — has argued that the panel has no jurisdiction over demolition. So supposedly Trump was free to knock down the East Wing though the panel hadn’t seen any detailed plans until today.
The first 90 minutes of the NCPC meeting were devoted to more mundane projects around the capital, like a new habitat at the National Zoo. Then Josh Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, kicked off the ballroom presentation by claiming that it was more economical to knock down the entire East Wing rather than transforming the existing space as it was riddled with problems like an........