NC lawmakers want to let billboard industry cut more trees, especially redbuds

Billboard owners would be able to cut more trees along North Carolina highways under a bill that received final approval from lawmakers Wednesday.

The bill would expand the “view zone” for each billboard, allowing companies to remove trees and vegetation from state right-of-way up to 500 feet from the sign.

The bill also eliminates protections for redbud trees. Under current law, native dogwoods and redbuds cannot be cut on state highway right-of-way to improve the view of billboards. Only dogwoods would enjoy that protection if Gov. Roy Cooper signs the bill into law.

The billboard provisions are part of House Bill 198, a larger piece of legislation known as an agency bill mostly containing changes requested by the state Department of Transportation. NCDOT did not ask for the billboard measure.

The House passed the bill 108-8 a year ago, but the Senate did not take it up until this spring. The Senate tinkered with the bill, though left the billboard provisions unchanged, and passed it 30-14 earlier this month. The House agreed to the changes 65-38 on Wednesday.

Under state law, the billboard view zone is limited to up to 380 feet along the roadway. The bill would set it at 350 feet on roads with a speed limit of 35 mph or less and 500 feet on roads over 35 mph. The N.C. Outdoor Advertising Association says the current zone on highways is too small to keep some signs from being obscured.

But environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Scenic North Carolina, say the changes unnecessarily sacrifice trees that belong to the public. They say they worked with the billboard industry on the current view zones that were established in 2011 and have broad support.

“Most North Carolinians are opposed to more cutting of trees in front of billboards,” Dale McKeel of Scenic North Carolina wrote in an email. “Billboards are already plenty visible under the 2011 compromise language.”

Earlier this month, Sen. Julie Mayfield, a Democrat from Buncombe County, proposed another compromise that would increase the visibility along highways from 380 to 500 feet but also reduce the proposed cut zone in areas not in a driver’s line of sight. It failed.

Speaking against the amendment, Sen. Steve Jarvis, a Republican from Davidson County, said it would “hamper what we see when we go down the interstate.”

“I love trees, but I do not like them in the right of way of where I’m trying to look at a billboard,” Jarvis said. “You need to be able to see it in enough time to be able to get off or make judgments for where you’re going.”

Why does the bill single out redbud trees?

The special protections for dogwood and redbud trees date back to the 2011 legislation. Both native trees were considered worth saving largely because their distinctive spring flowers are so closely associated with the state; dogwood has been the official state flower since 1941.

But the billboard industry has come to consider redbuds a problem, because they can grow large enough to block the view of a sign.

“A redbud can be 30 feet tall and 35 feet wide, and we’ve got some billboards that are only 25 feet high,” TJ Bugbee, executive director of the N.C. Outdoor Advertising Association, said in an interview last year. “We’ve got a lot of instances where there’s a redbud smack in the middle of the face of the billboard.”

But Ryke Longest, a Duke University Law professor who serves on the Scenic North Carolina board, told lawmakers this month that the trees have value to anyone looking for scenic beauty in the state, including tourists.

“Allowing redbuds to be cut will not do anything to improve the business climate of this state,” Longest said. “All it’s going to do is increase the uglification that we face.”