North Carolina allows billboard owners to cut down publicly owned trees to keep their signs in view, according to the Associated Press. Even so, the billboard industry say there are still too many tree-cutting restrictions, and after a year of discussion, a focus group of government, environmentalist and industry reps came to no decision. Retired UGA real estate professor Charles Floyd lives in North Carolina and says that the billboard industry has too much visual access to highways as it is: “Billboards are not a use of the land but of a highway,” he is quoted. “And billboards are the only business that uses the highways and makes money from them without paying for them.”
