HADLEY — A poured-in-place rubber surface to be installed for the improved playgrounds and new swing set at Hadley Elementary School, making for a safer space for children, may depend on successfully getting a grant from the town’s Community Preservation Act account.

The Hadley School Committee is asking for $290,000 to complete the playground rehabilitation project on the school grounds.

It is the larger of two requests being reviewed by the CPA Committee in advance of a special Town Meeting in October. The other comes from the Hadley Historical Commission, which is seeking $2,000 to hire a consultant to catalog Hadley’s historic assets and help commission members prioritize their efforts.

School Committee member Tara Brugger told the CPA Committee at a late August meeting that the poured-in-place rubber is expensive, but will help complete the playground work. The initiative is being supported by The Friends of Hadley Preschool, the Hadley PTO and school officials, with a fundraising campaign bringing in more than $300,000, on top of $100,000 from a school choice account supplementing donations.

The new playground design, which will meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, will include two new structures, one for students in grades 1-6 and one for preschool and kindergarten classes, in addition to the swing set.

Older children will have access to low-level and high-level play areas, an oscillating chair that spins, and larger platforms to make access easier, along with a hammock swing and table under the structure and two fully accessible spinners. Younger children will have a standing spinner and two musical items, a drum and another apparatus, as well as table and play panels under the structure, a spring rider, and stepping stones and play panels that will be placed for all to access.

A temporary surface of wood chips would be changed to the permanent rubber surface in next year. “Wood chips are messy, hard to maintain, can cause injury, (and) they shift in a lot of different ways,” Brugger said.

Hadley Elementary Principal Jennifer Dowd said it is fiscally more responsible for the rubber matting to be used than wood chips, which periodically need replacing.

And like the Hopkins Academy playing fields, which has also depended on CPA support, Hadley Superintendent Anne McKenzie said residents will have plenty of time to enjoy the new amenity. “The playground, the fields at Hopkins, these area are available to the public outside the 180 days students are at school, and the 6½ hours they’re at school,” McKenzie said.

Committee member Andy Morris-Friedman said he would likely endorse the request, noting that he prefers property tax dollars go to the school to cover the costs of education.

Using $2,000 in CPA funds, Chris Skelly of Skelly Preservation Services would develop a preservation plan summary, said Historical Commission member Brianna Quinn.

Skelly would do a daylong tour with the commission members to catalog resources around town, Quinn said, and then draw up a report to identify items the commission could work on.

Diana West, who chairs the commission that recently unveiled new historic signs marking the Town Common, Hockanum, North Hadley and town center, said the study will provide a road map, rather than a full preservation plan that would be much more expensive.

Possible decisions on whether to recommend or reject the proposals could come Sept. 16.

Hadley has two CPA funding cycles each year, with recommendations typically coming before fall Town Meeting voters in October and annual Town Meeting in May. A favorable recommendation is needed to get onto the Town Meeting warrant, with voters then approving or rejecting the spending.

If both are supported, it would leave the CPA account with $2.19 million, down from the $2.48 million currently available for recreation, open space preservation, affordable housing and historic preservation projects. The account is funded by a 3% surcharge on property tax bills, with the first $100,000 of residential tax bills excluded, supplemented with an annual match from the state.

The CPA Committee accepted the return of $125,400 that was to go for rehabilitating the exterior of the former St. John’s Catholic Church building at 146 Russell St., now the world headquarters for V-One Vodka. Last fall, voters narrowly approved using CPA money for the work at the 1902 building, but did so with a requirement that V-One founder Paul Kozub pay back the money should he sell the building within the next 20 years.

CPA Committee Chairwoman Mary Thayer said that reimbursement timeline, when had originally been set at five years, was a deal-breaker for Kozub, who informed her that he is relinquishing the CPA grant.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.