DC Height Rule Doesn't Apply to Trump's Arch, Agency Says

The Trump administration is suggesting a way around existing protections for the Washington, DC, skyline, but getting buy-in might be a tall order. A new Interior Department memo argues that the 1910 Height of Buildings Act, which has long capped most construction in the capital at 130 feet, doesn't apply to federal projects—including President Trump's proposed 250-foot triumphal arch. The memo, requested by Will Scharf, the Trump-appointed National Capital Planning Commission chair, recasts the law as essentially a local zoning rule aimed at private property and concludes decisively: "Federal buildings are not subject" to it.

That would upend decades of practice by the commission, whose staff said it has always applied the height law to federal work. Historians, architects, and Democrats dispute the new reading. "Congress, not the Executive, decided in 1910 that Washington would remain a horizontal city, and Congress has preserved that judgment ever since," congressional Democrats wrote to the administration this week. Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth asked the FAA on Thursday to oppose the arch on the grounds that it could endanger commercial flights, per the Hill. The National Park Service has said the cranes needed to build it could reach 300 feet or so into the sky.