Planning for open space and recreation in new high density areas : a reply to Marriott

This note is a response to comments by Ken Marriott on our recent Australian Planner article on open space and recreation planning in new high density areas (NHDAs). We reject the claim that our work ignores existing open space and recreation planning methodologies and cite sources which present our extensive reviews and evaluations of those methodologies. We also provide further explanation of the planning challenges of NHDAs, notably land constraints and the absence of a resident population during the planning process, and re- emphasise the flexible nature of the recreation activity benchmark as a planning tool.