Some 25,000 billboards along certain stretches of Texas highways could soar in size under a regulatory change approved by state transportation officials.

The Texas Transportation Commission voted unanimously Thursday to eliminate the existing 42½-foot height restriction beginning September 2019, allowing the size limit to double. The ruling followed months of deliberation and discussion, including a write-in campaign that generated thousands of letters both against and in favor of taller billboards.

The action allows the 2019 Texas Legislature to revisit the matter and issue clearer rules, commission chairman J. Bruce Bugg said.

"We are trying to bring what I would call a fair balance to the deliberation," he said.

The commission was immediately criticized for giving lobbyists for outdoor advertising companies a stronger hand in dealing with legislators when they meet next year. Many sign companies are aggressively seeking to roll back limits on height and the brightness of electronic billboards.

"The industry has no incentive to participate in that, help in that, or do anything other than kill it," said Margaret Lloyd, president of Scenic Texas, which advocates for sign limits.

State Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, and chairman of the Texas Senate Transportation Committee, said lawmakers in 2017 made clear they intended to keep the 42½-foot ceiling in place, although the authority rested with the transportation commission.

"Billboards will go to 85 feet," Nichols said, warning of the consequences if lawmakers do not act.

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Industry officials were more supportive of Thursday's action.

"We fully support industry regulations that balance private property rights with the need for beautification across the state of Texas and the revised rules do just that," said Lee Vela, president of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Texas and vice president for public affairs at Clear Channel Outdoor-Houston.

Billboard height restrictions are not required under the Highway Beautification Act, passed in 1965 at the urging of the late Lady Bird Johnson, then the nation's first lady as President Lyndon Johnson's wife. Rather, the height restrictions date to the mid-1980s and the administration of then-Gov. Mark White.

In 1985, then-Gov. Mark White urged transportation officials to set a limit of 42½ feet on rural roads. One year later, White pressed for freeways and interstates to have the same restrictions.

Thus, the Texas Department of Transportation has had authority to regulate billboards erected along state-controlled highways for more than three decades. At last count, there were about 25,000 of them.

The rules do not apply in municipalities, like Houston, that already regulate signs or along rural roads maintained by TxDOT that are not eligible for federal funds for maintenance and improvements. Billboards on those lesser-traveled roads will remain at 42½ feet.

Regulating the billboards is difficult for TxDOT, officials said, noting the number of signs and the development alongside highways over the decades. Roads are also often redesigned, affecting heights of surrounding billboards.

As of October, there were enforcement issues with at least 159 signs. Others could exceed the 42½-foot standard but were erected prior to 1986.

The latest revisions to the billboard regulations were prompted by a court challenge to Texas' sign rules in 2016, and a need to address hundreds of billboards that do not satisfy state rules because they pre-date laws, road conditions changed or were simply installed out of compliance.

"Some of them were over 100 feet," Scenic Texas' Lloyd told transportation officials. "(Outdoor advertising companies) basically turned their backs to the agency that was regulating them."

Vela, the industry representative, said Texas has sufficient oversight of the outdoor advertising industry.

"We support robust enforcement of all regulations and believe that the department does a very good job of enforcement," he said.

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Comments pro and con poured in when TxDOT first proposed some of the rule changes in October, with more than 4,700 comments on the height restriction dominating the mix.

Of the 2,010 in favor of increasing the limit to 85 feet or eliminating height rules altogether, many came from outdoor advertising companies, property owners with billboards on their land and companies that use the signs to advertise.

Another 2,694 commenters opposed raising the height limits. Most of those were from Scenic Texas and its supporters and concerned residents.

Lawmakers who commented were divided, with some backing no height restrictions while others, including Nichols, stressing the need for beautification.

With lawmakers for and against the 42½-foot standard, a bill proposing that as a cap is likely.

But its passage is less certain, roughly a year before lawmakers reconvene.

What's clear, Nichols said, is inaction with the new rules in place will lead to taller signs.

"If one billboard goes to 85, the next one will and the next," he said.

He said he understood the need to balance property rights, economic development and highway beautification, noting the current height doesn't lessen salesmanship.

"I do not think McDonald's or Burger King will sell more hamburgers" with taller signs, Nichols said. "... I do think it will be much uglier."