The West Tisbury planning board Monday night unanimously approved a nine-unit affordable housing project just east of the town center, setting the stage for an article on tonight’s special town meeting warrant asking voters to spend $900,000 in community preservation funds to support the development.

The Island Housing Trust is the developer for the town-owned land on Edgartown Road bordering the Manter Field. The project has been in the works since 2014. That year voters agreed to contribute $50,000 to predevelopment costs, and a year later the town agreed to allow the housing trust to expand the project to include up to 18 bedrooms in seven buildings. Two private residences and a public bike path abut the property.

Plans now call for a mix of one, two and three-bedroom units in two clusters. A single road will provide access to all the buildings, as well as the bike path and baseball field. A denitrifying septic system is planned for each cluster, along with a public well and 18 parking spots arranged to preserve existing trees. The estimated cost of the project is $2.9 million.

Housing trust executive director Philippe Jordi and project manager Derrill Bazzy appeared before the planning board at a well-attended public hearing on Monday. Mr. Jordi said the project would resemble the recently approved Kuehn’s Way development in Vineyard Haven, with first-floor bedrooms accessible for people with handicaps and a relatively simple design. He said noise would be limited to the center of the development, with screening on both sides and the clusters opening out to the road.

Mr. Bazzy said the buildings themselves would help buffer noise and light from the road, which is now sited farther away from the nearest houses than in early plans. Existing vegetation will provide some screening on the southern part of the site.

The parking plan will be modeled after the Polly Hill Arboretum in West Tisbury, where a main campus is laid out to preserve existing trees.

Larry Shubert, chairman of the town affordable housing committee, noted that the town’s request for proposals some time ago had called for improvements to the baseball field, but that the town parks and recreation committee preferred its current state. Mr. Bazzy said the committee has wanted to maintain the area’s informal character. “The idea is to keep it simple at this stage,” he said.

As with the Kuehn’s Way development, voters will be asked to move ahead before all the funding is in place. Mr. Jordi outlined a mix of potential funding sources, including state grants and a loan from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston. The trust plans to apply for the loan next year, but won’t know the results until December, he said.

Mr. Jordi said construction could still begin next year, possibly in the fall. “It’s just a question of how comfortable we are moving forward without having all the funding in place,” he said. He said the housing trust has a $45,000 reserve fund generated by existing projects.

The new apartments would be limited to people earning less than 80 per cent of the area median income, which varies according to household size. Rents for a single-bedroom unit, for example, would range from $746 to $1,139 per month (not including utilities) based on household incomes between 50 and 80 per cent of the median income. Rents for a three-bedroom apartment would range from $942 to $1,550. Mr. Jordi said there is a possibility of applying a town preference for at least some of the apartments. He stressed the high demand for rental housing on the Island.

Planning board members strongly endorsed the project, granting a special permit that may provide some additional weight at the special town meeting.

“It sounds like you’ve hashed it out and created an idea that will work for everybody,” board member Matt Merry said of the project and the efforts of the housing trust to work with abutters.

“I’m personally very impressed with the modifications,” said board member Bea Phear, who moved to approve the special permit. “Every time I’ve seen this, it’s improved.”

Board member Virginia Jones welcomed the project’s location near the center of town, with public transportation, bike paths, the West Tisbury School and Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School all nearby. “I think this is a win-win situation,” she said.

The special town meeting begins tonight at 7 p.m. at the West Tisbury School.