Assessment of the Quality of Place on Park Utilization (Case study: 5 Parks in Different Scales in Bandar Abbas)

 Public parks have central roles in urban planning and urban health. However, recently, in developing countries they have started to lose their significance due to fast redevelopment in these countries. The study explores the role of park features including aesthetics, facility and amenity, access, safety and comfort in related to park utilization. Five parks in different scales including pocket park, neighborhood park, community park, regional park and urban park from zone one in Bandar Abbas city were selected as samples of the study. The study used questionnaire survey to determine the relationship between park features and its utilization. 540 questionnaire were distributed in studied parks equally and finally 391 questionnaires were qualified to be used for the study. The study used Smart-PLS to evaluate the relationship between park features and its utilization. The findings showed the significant relationship between safety, aesthetics and access with park utilization. The study didn’t find any significant relationship between facility and amenity, and comfort with park utilization. Moreover, it was revealed that most of the participants don’t use parks frequently. Majority of them used the park once a week or less. Although the study didn’t find the significant relationship between some park features and its utilization but the study suggests that to promote people to use more public parks, increasing the quality of one or two features would not increase the general quality of parks and park utilization. In this regards, it is suggested, to increase park utilization, designers should consider all features of parks.