We are building. The site stays open.

In planning law, the site counts as undeveloped land outside the built-up area. So that the main building, the sanitary buildings and the tiny houses can be built there, the town of Naumburg is drawing up a development plan. The right to put up the new buildings arises once the plan is legally in force. Until then, the schedule above is an intention with a caveat.

The example layout for the plan shows the finished state without a timeline: the lake in the middle, the pitches in the north and east, the tiny houses on the south shore, the main building at the entrance. It also shows things we have not yet committed to: the off-lead dog area and the mini golf course. Both appear here as the town's planning, not as something we offer.

An example layout is an illustration, not a binding provision. Which parts of it are built, and when, is set out in the table above.

Most pitches are arranged in rings around a shared space, the rest in short rows along the site road. The study calls the rings “Blüten”, blossoms. Every pitch measures at least 120 square metres; between the rings, green space remains: hedges, trees, wildflower meadows instead of lawn. That is deliberately less than the site could hold. Quality over quantity, as the study puts it.

A two-lane main access road runs from the new entrance through the north and east of the site; at reception there are short-stay bays for caravans, so that checking in needs no manoeuvring. The new approach road also separates the site neatly from the canoe club next door.

We open in 2027 with 120 pitches, and in 2028 there will be 220. Anyone who comes in the first season will find a site still being built: tidied up, with new sanitary facilities, but with building work around the edges.

More than twenty old buildings are coming down. A new main building goes up north of the lake, on ground above flood level, where the round communal pavilion used to stand. The new building echoes its shape. It has three parts:

• The round building: reception with the Genusskontor, offices and a restaurant that opens towards the entrance, the beer garden and the lake. Around 50 to 70 seats inside, considerably more outside.
• The long wing: sanitary facilities for the campsite and the restaurant: showers, washbasins and toilets, barrier-free, plus a washing-up room and a laundry. Screened from the beer garden side by shrubs and perennials.
• The end section: workshop, storage, the power distribution for the whole site and a youth and multi-purpose room across the full width.

The second sanitary building follows in 2028 in the east: compact rooms under a round, overhanging roof that picks up the shape of the pitch blossoms. In front of it, a small forecourt where you can shelter when it rains.

South of the lake, on ground above flood level, the tiny houses will be built in two groups and two phases. They are self-contained and meant for anyone arriving without their own vehicle or wanting something more solid.

They are the reason the site is open all year from 2029: a tiny house works even when the tent meadow is asleep.

What comes after that has not been decided. The study suggests glamping and treehouses with vineyard views. These are ideas, not dates.

At the centre of the site lies a lake of around 16,000 square metres with half a kilometre of shoreline, created in 1967 and a public natural swimming lake until 2004. It is fed by groundwater. Its level falls in summer and rises in winter. In 2004 bathing was stopped because of the water quality readings; it is precisely this rise and fall that makes it hard to keep them good over time.

The lake is not a bathing spot today. Swimming has been prohibited since 2004, there are signs on the shore, and we keep to that. Anyone who remembers the Blütengrund as a bathing lake will only be able to look at it in 2027 and 2028.

Restoring it is the most demanding part of the project. The aim is a stable water level all year round: wells feed in groundwater when the level is low, and an overflow drains into the river when it is high. Only then can shore plants on about a fifth of the water surface do what they are planted for: clean the water. This happens in stages until the quality is right; for this, a building with technical plant, changing rooms and sanitary facilities will go up on the west shore.

The planned opening as a natural swimming lake is 1 May 2029, for campers and for the people of Naumburg, just as it used to be. The study sums up its findings with caution: the snapshot, it says, suggests a successful restoration. We are staying cautious too, until the water proves it.