An important initial step is to examine how Australian dogs and their owners have been affected by open space planning and management. This section describes the planning and management environment and concludes by listing the main management responses to the issue of dogs' access to public open space. Each response is later evaluated in more depth in Section 6: Assessing the Options.
Australian cities are reasonably well provided with parks and open space owing to their later development and conscious attempts at town planning. The open space plans were often based on grand visions that did not necessarily cater for people's needs but we are nevertheless fortunate today in the amounts that were provided.
In more recent years, developers of new subdivisions have been required to set aside a specified percentage of land as public open space for future residents (say 5%). This has been criticised as a tool for providing open space for the following reasons:
Urban planners now prepare Structure Plans for newly developing suburbs in an attempt to achieve a better distribution of land uses. However the level of detail is not sufficient to produce really effective outcomes for public open space provision or indeed for specific user groups. A view has tended to prevail that once the standard requirement is met, the planner's obligations have been fulfilled.
A needs-based approach to recreation planning is said to counter these deficiencies by looking at the activities in which people participate. Essentially it seeks to ensure the amount and location of open space and recreation facilities is consistent with population trends and changing recreation needs rather than relying on gross standards. It provides the strategic area-wide focus against which detailed planning and management of individual parks can be undertaken. This is usually carried out by recreation planners and open space professionals although few municipalities actually prepare strategic open space plans. As far as we are aware dog owners' needs have not been considered in any needs- based recreation planning exercises.
Some state governments, e.g. Victoria, have prepared metropolitan wide open space plans to identify broad gaps in opportunities, especially of activities with regional catchments, and to better match regional resources to major population growth corridors.
Overall the input of ACO's in the planning for public open space has been negligible. It would seem that the needs of dog owners aren't perceived to warrant separate consideration - their needs are assumed to be part of broad passive and informal recreation needs. Ideally, this is as it should be, except that in practice dogs are being restricted as part of the park management stage explained below. It is because of this gap that we now need to plan for dogs and their access to public open space.