City Council has voted 31 to 12 against a motion to declare the back campus grass at the University of Toronto a heritage property. Adam Vaughan (Ward 20 Trinity Spadina) and a number of students and faculty at the university had made a late-in-the-day effort to stop the U of T from converting the field to artificial turf. The plan has been in the works since 2009 and was conceived as a necessary amenity to make it possible to play women’s field hockey there during the Pan American Games. The games are slated to be played in Toronto and nearby communities in 2015. Among those opposing the conversion was former Bennington Heights resident Margaret Atwood and prominent U of T history professor Michael Bliss of Leaside. Maclean’s
