In the late 1990s, with AstroTurf going the way of rollerblades and bell bottoms, a tiny Midwest company made history by developing a new type of artificial turf that resembled the real thing. A public endorsement of the product by legendary Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne helped usher in a new era for AstroTurf and a handful of other companies whose products went viral around the turn of the millennium.

“A lot of companies came out of the woodwork and the prices kept being competitive,” said Joseph DiGeronimo, a leading turf consultant based in Sturbridge. “And they are still very competitive. The price for a standard turf field isn’t much different than it was in 1999.”

Artificial turf has become the norm at many colleges and high schools, with more than 12,000 fields nationwide. As more fields appear and costs go down, more communities have been making the switch, often swayed by a promise of year-round play and easier maintenance. Many towns in Massachusetts have joined the club in recent years, while sometimes fierce debates play out in other communities, as they have this year on the Vineyard, where a planned overhaul of the high school athletic facilities includes at least one artificial turf field.

The rise of turf has brought with it a litany of complaints related to safety, long-term cost and appearance. The national grass-roots network Safe Healthy Playing Fields Coalition is now active in about 15 states, and many communities have sprouted citizen groups that promote natural grass playing fields.

The breakthrough in the 1990s involved the use of old tires, which were pulverized and used to fill the spaces between the grass blades to create a more realistic surface. The new blades were also softer and more grasslike than traditional AstroTurf.

In recent years, the options have expanded to include an array of surfaces and infill materials, some marketed as natural or organic, although all the products remain largely untested. Limited studies suggest no elevated health risk from playing on crumb rubber, despite the presence of potentially harmful substances, but many people have called for more thorough and independent analysis of the materials. The federal government launched a major study of crumb rubber in February, with a final report expected this year.

Concerns about crumb rubber on the Vineyard have convinced developers to opt instead for a plant-based infill made from coconut husks and other materials. Two hearings at the high school last spring aired some concerns, but some see the public process as lacking, and debate has simmered below the surface in recent months. The proposal is now on hold as it heads to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for review.

Public-private partnerships like the one proposed on the Vineyard are a common approach in the region, although strategies differ from place to place. In some cases, the efforts involve years of public discussion, such as in Wellesley, where the town high school plans to open a new artificial field next week. In Concord, where a major athletic complex including artificial turf was largely completed last year, a three-year moratorium on artificial turf was approved by voters in April.

On the Vineyard MV@Play — a nonprofit formed for the purpose of building the new fields — and the engineering firm Gale Associates presented a three-phase preliminary plan to the high school last April. MV@Play co-founder David Wallis, who also is president of the Vineyard youth soccer organization, said the plans came out of discussions with the high school that began more than a year ago.

While MV@Play raises money and assumes all of the risk for the project (phase one is estimated to cost $3.5 million), Gale Associates acts as the designer and general contractor, providing advice along the way. “This is a triangle, not a line,” Mr. Wallis said of the three-way relationship. But that approach has failed to square with many in the community who feel left out of the discussion.

Vineyarders for Grass Fields, an opposing group, has pressed for further study and launched its own fundraising efforts to support the maintenance of existing grass fields at the high school. “We feel like the proposal caught the Island off guard,” co-founder Rebekah Thomson told the Gazette. “Since we don’t have any synthetic fields here already, it was not something that was on people’s radar.”

Questions also surround Gale Associates, which some see as a back-seat driver in the process, although the company and others involved say the project belongs entirely to MV@Play. The plan calls for the new facilities to be built first and later gifted to the school, making it possible to legally circumvent public bidding laws. MV@Play members said Gale has recommended potential contractors and will help insure the job gets finished.

Gale Associates is among the leading artificial turf design firms in the Northeast and has designed more than 200 athletic field projects.

Efforts to install artificial turf at the Wellesley High School gained steam around 2012, when a new school was under construction. A 2014 analysis said the high school was short two or three fields, so Tripp Sheehan, chairman of the playing fields task force, obtained $166,000 in Community Preservation Act funds for a schematic design by Gale Associates. After a $1 million fundraising drive last year, the town Community Preservation Committee agreed to contribute another $1 million, and voters unanimously approved the project this year, along with another $1 million in town spending.

Mr. Sheehan cited a long and thorough public process as benefiting the project. Studies by the Wellesley College cancer prevention project and health department helped further assuage public fears about health risks. The project ended up using a recycled plastic infill called thermoplastic elastomer, or TPE, rather than crumb rubber. It was twice as expensive, Mr. Sheehan said. “But our feeling was that our children’s and residents’ health was not for sale.” The community had also considered using a plant-based infill, but Mr. Sheehan noted concerns about mold and the need for watering the surface. He said most of the opposition in Wellesley had focused not on turf but on a proposed lighting plan that was later scrapped.

“I think everybody felt that we had involved all the various constituents, listened to their concerns, and in a very methodical and thorough way addressed those concerns as best we could,” Mr. Sheehan said. He said 999 private donors contributed to the project. “That’s a rather large portion of our population that was speaking with their wallets,” he said.

The use of community preservation funds for such projects has come under question, since the state does not allow the funds to be used to purchase artificial turf. The Gale Associates website includes a guide titled, “How to Use CPA Funds for Athletic Field Projects (Particularly Those Involving Synthetic Turf).” The guide states that CPA funds are often used for related infrastructure, including the concrete base.

Tracy Stewart of Safe Healthy Playing Fields Coalition said she believes the installation of artificial turf may amount to far less than half a project’s total cost, and she sharply criticized the use of CPA funds for the rest. “I think it sends the wrong message that there is a workaround for this, because taxpayer money is funding anywhere from 80 to 90 per cent of these projects,” she said. She also noted that schools are typically left with the ongoing cost of maintenance, which includes replacing the field surface at the end of its lifespan.

MV@Play member Robert (Spike) Smith said this summer that private donations would cover most of the cost of the Vineyard project, with repairs to the school running track covered by CPA funds that Island voters appropriated last year. Wellesley’s project emerged organically from years of discussion and planning, but that’s not always the case. The public-private partnership on Martha’s Vineyard echoes others in the state, including in Groton, where efforts at the Groton-Dunstable High School led to the creation of the nonprofit GD@Play, which like MV@Play is planning to develop an artificial turf field and other facilities in collaboration with Gale Associates.

Concerns about maintaining grass fields in the midst of a busy athletic schedule had school officials in Groton eager for an upgrade. School athletic director Mike McCaffrey took the first step with a space needs assessment three years ago. But the discussion so far has stayed largely within the school community. A group of concerned parents eventually came on board and formed GD@Play, which plans to pay for the $1.3 million project entirely through donations.

The first public hearing on the project is scheduled for next week, but Mr. McCaffrey said he has yet to hear much opposition. The town has already approved plans for drainage and conservation. He said nearby Groton Academy and Lawrence School both have artificial fields, and a strong athletic culture at Groton-Dunstable High School has helped garner support for the project. As in Wellesley, GD@Play is opting for an alternative TPE infill.

Communities appear to be learning from each other along the way. MV@Play and GD@Play both were modeled after CC@Play, which worked with Gale to develop an athletic complex for the towns of Concord and Carlisle. Mr. McCaffrey and MV@Play members said there was no connection beyond the name and early discussions with CC@Play. Mr. Sheehan said Gale did not discuss the option of forming a nonprofit in Wellesley, although he said the project was already far along when Gale came onboard.

Beverley Bryant, a Concord resident and member of the group Grass Fields for Safe Sports, who opposed the installation of artificial fields in her town, said she was grateful for CC@Play’s work in upgrading the town’s athletic facilities, but felt sidelined when it came to public participation. And the emergence of similar projects around the state had her scratching her head.

“You have to wonder at the sudden desire for the huge projects,” she said. “Where did that come from? Did the town ask for that? Did they just want to fix up their fields? Suddenly there is this huge, expensive project on the horizon.”