The bill would allow outdoor advertisers to replace existing billboards with electronic ones – up to seven per mile – and expand the area around them that could be cleared of trees from 250 feet to 400 feet.
It would gut Durham’s existing billboard ban and nullify other local regulations that govern tree removal or sign location.
The bill would affect signs on interstate highways and federally assisted roads.
Supporters said by making billboards more prominent and easier to see, the measure would help restaurants, hotels and tourism in a state mired in a struggling economy.
“It’s a fair bill, it’s a jobs bill, it makes sense,” the sponsor, Republican Sen. Harry Brown of Onslow County, told the panel.
Critics say it makes billboard companies more powerful than local governments – a prospect that concerns some lawmakers.
“I don’t think we ought to take control away from local governments,” said Sen. Richard Stevens, R-Wake. “We do too much micromanaging up here the way it.”
COMPILED BY LYNN BONNER AND ROB CHRISTENSEN, JIM MORRILL – STAFF WRITERS
March 24, 2011
