The Charles River Center presented an informal review Monday to the Needham Design Review Board for Charles River Heights, an 86-unit affordable housing development planned at 59 East Militia Heights Drive that would set aside roughly half the units for the Charles River Center’s clients.

Anne Marie Bosois, president and CEO of the Charles River Center, said the project is “a mission-driven development” intended to integrate residents supported by the center with the broader community. Phil Kreen, co-developer and project manager, told the board the development would be submitted through a 40B comprehensive-permit pathway and that the project team will seek a project eligibility letter from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. “What we’re proposing is 86 affordable units of housing, half of which will be set aside for Charles River Center clients,” Kreen said.

Project team members described a campus-style site plan with four buildings: one three-story building containing most units and amenities and three single-story buildings at the site entry, each with six studio apartments and a shared common space. The proposal includes a roughly 4,400-square-foot community room intended for programming and town use, 61 parking spaces (about one per unit), and five staffed units for clients who will be referred to the property through a closed referral system with the Department of Developmental Services (DDS).

Architect Jason Miaske of TAT presented site and floor plans showing a U-shaped three-story building with pods of accessible and studio units, an entry drop-off and a rear courtyard with resident parking. “The community room…really wants to be the hub of the whole community,” Miaske said in describing fenestration and pedestrian connections between buildings.

Landscape architect Rebecca Vashon said the team intends to retain as many existing trees as possible, remove invasive species (including bittersweet), revegetate an old driveway within Conservation Commission jurisdiction and use native, low-maintenance plantings, screening and dark-sky-compliant pedestrian-scale lighting. “We’ll be removing that and revegetating,” Vashon said of the existing drive in the conservation area.

The team described sustainability measures including all-electric appliances and a passive-house design approach, and said on-site renewable energy generation is anticipated. The schedule the presenters gave to the board calls for submitting a project eligibility letter application to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities in the coming weeks, with the team expecting the letter after the state’s review (they estimated about a four-month review and anticipated receiving the eligibility letter after Labor Day), then filing a comprehensive-permit application to the Zoning Board of Appeals in October.

Board members expressed support and offered design and neighborliness suggestions. Design Review Board member Felix Semmel said he was “in full support of this concept” and that the location “is great.” Member Steve Dornbush and Member Susan Hopton also voiced support; Hopton, who lives nearby, asked about programming and whether community gardening or shared programs with North Hill might be considered. Chair Mark Klusing and other members recommended limiting large expanses of turf for maintenance reasons and urged pedestrian-scale, low-level lighting to reduce impacts on nearby neighbors.

No formal vote or binding decision was taken: the item was presented as an informal review and the board indicated it typically prepares a memo to the Zoning Board of Appeals after its review. The project team said they will continue detailed design work, pursue state funding and submit formal applications in the fall timeline described to the board.