Trump wants a 250-foot triumphal arch on Memorial Circle, the traffic circle at the Virginia end of Arlington Memorial Bridge near Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington. The Height of Buildings Act, passed in 1910, generally forbids buildings taller than 130 feet in the capital, which is why the city has its low skyline.
Rather than redesign, his team is arguing the law does not mean what the planning commission has said it means since 1938. The Interior Department, which oversees the land and the project, sent a memo to the National Capital Planning Commission contending that Congress “did not intend for the law to apply to federal buildings,” citing an 1899 statute that exempted federal buildings from height limits. The Height Act repealed conflicting laws, but Interior argues the 1899 exception “does not conflict” because the 1910 law “is just a local zoning ordinance and does not apply to the United States.”
The commission's own staff disagreed. Its memo noted the commission has consistently held since 1938 that the Height Act applies to federal buildings, and recommended that commissioners “request the applicant revise the project design to comply with the Height of Buildings Act,” suggesting the heights be redistributed among the arch, its roof deck and the statues on top. At an open meeting on July 9, the commission voted to approve preliminary site and building plans: eight commissioners in favor, one against and three voting present. It put off deciding whether the Height Act applies. Chairman Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, said Interior's legal analysis made a “compelling argument” that the law “is not binding on the federal government,” and said a final vote could come in September. The lone no vote, Evan Cash, said he was “not willing to lend my vote to plans that can have the effect of upending decades of NCPC practice and century-old height framework.”
The arch is one piece of a broader remaking of the capital in the president's image, alongside the ballroom, the Rose Garden redesign, and the renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool (see Trump's $14 Million Reflecting Pool Redo Fills With Algae and Sheds Its Paint, Then He Blames Obama and 'Vandals').
Correction (October 2, 2026): The entry placed the arch in Washington and said the commission took up Interior's legal argument before granting approval. The arch site is on the Virginia side of the Potomac, and the commission approved preliminary plans while deferring the height-law question to a later meeting. The entry now says so.