Smoking law, taxis and development on Town Meeting agenda

Brookline’s annual Town Meeting will tackle a lengthy agenda this spring, including a proposal to ban smoking around the high school, several articles related to a new Boston Children’s Hospital office development, and a request to repeal changes to local taxi laws. The meeting will address 33 articles beginning May 27 at 7 p.m. in the Brookline High School auditorium. In addition to the town’s budget, Town Meeting will be asked to vote on proposals by Brookline resident Nathan Bermel to increase the local minimum age to buy tobacco products from 19 to 21 years old, as well as a proposal to create a no-smoking zone around Brookline High School. Several articles on the warrant will address zoning, easements, and potential property taxes associated with a proposal by Children’s to build an eight-story office building at 2-4 Brookline Place with a 47,000-square-foot wing added to 1 Brookline Place. One of the central questions will be whether the town should alter a zoning requirement that the majority of the project’s parking must be underground and whether the hospital should be allowed to move forward with a proposal to replace a four-story parking garage with a 6½-story garage at the site. Town Meeting member John Harris has also proposed an article to repeal the town’s plan to convert its taxi licensing system to a medallion program, which he argues would lead to higher fares and inefficient service. After years of planning, the Board of Selectmen decided to do away with a system in which taxi license holders pay Brookline an annual fee to operate a cab and move to a medallion system in which a one-time payment is made for the license. Officials expect the sale of the medallions to generate about $15 million in revenue for the town.