Designing a model for optimal locating of sports facilities based on the urban planning criteria

Sports facilities are one of the most commonly used services in the city with a significant role in improving the physical and mental health condition of citizens thus a proper procedure is required to locate and distribute them. The purpose of this study is to design a comprehensive model for the optimal location of sports facilities. The research method is descriptive-analytic based on information gathering and is applied research based on objectives. The opinions of 20 experts have been used to design the model using the Delphi method, and weighting the effective criteria in the sports facilities location. The weight of each criterion has been obtained as population density (0.47), access (0.31), development potential (0.14), and adjacency (0.08); furthermore, the Kendall coefficient of concordance (0.74) in the third step of the Delphi method shows the strong agreement between the experts, regarding the proposed model. The proposed model consisted of six steps: 1. Aim; 2. Verification of the functional area of the existing sport facilities and specific restrictions of the area; 3. Introducing and weighting the important criteria in the sports facilities location; 4. Identifying the most suitable locations for constructing the sports facilities; 5. Evaluating the needs of users; 6. Selecting the best spaces and prioritizing them. The results of the model showed that the most important criteria for locating sport facilities are population density, access, development potential, and adjacency. Additionally, it was indicated that the agreement between the experts increased over time. According to the proposed model, it is possible to identify the points that are suitable for constructing the new sports facilities.