Value design: what resort land near Delhi should actually become

KM 018 · The problem first

When families call us about this.

Value design calls usually start with an idea, or with land that has waited too long.

• The family holds land near a growing corridor, and it earns nothing.
• Someone has proposed a resort, and the numbers were never shown.
• A farm stay or event ground is running, but badly, and the family is tired of it.
• The family wants a place that people travel to, held for the next generation.
• A purpose has been chosen, and nobody has checked whether the land may carry it.

Most of these ideas begin in the wrong order. They choose the building first, then look for the permission, then hope for the guests. We work in the opposite order.

KM 036 · Purpose

Four families of purpose.

The purposes that suit land near North India's corridors are light, local and largely reversible. We show them here only in outline. The specific designs stay with mandated clients.

Gathering grounds

Land for the occasions a city cannot host. Weddings, retreats, harvest days, family gatherings. Open land, a few good structures, and careful arrangements for parking, sound and neighbours.

Light stays

Few rooms, low build, registered under the state's homestay and farm-tourism frameworks. Guests come for the land and the quiet, not for the room count.

Skill and sport grounds

Disciplines people return to: horse, bow, wheel, court. An equestrian centre, an archery range, a pottery studio or courts bring the same people back every week, which is a steadier income than a weekend crowd.

Working landscapes

Land that produces while it waits. Orchards, farming that visitors can join, and native planting that improves the land's own value.

KM 054 · Frameworks

The frameworks that govern it.

Each state is building a framework for this kind of land use. They change often, and we read the current text before designing anything.

• Haryana amended its Home Stay scheme and its farm tourism scheme in 2024, with registration through Haryana Tourism. In April 2026 the state said a combined farm tourism and homestay policy would go to its Cabinet. Read the gazette notifications.
• Uttar Pradesh approved its Homestay and Bed and Breakfast Policy, 2025 in June 2025, with registration, local no-objection certificates and room limits. Check the current room limit against the official notification.
• Himachal Pradesh has long run a homestay scheme, and its terms for owners who bought land under a Section 118 permission have been under review.

The permission behind the purpose matters as much as the registration. Our permission work runs alongside every design.

KM 072 · Who runs it

Operators and governance.

Families should own the land and the purpose. They should rarely run the business day to day. We select operators who run gatherings, stays or grounds for a living, and we structure their agreement so the family keeps control.

Good governance is simple to state. The family owns the land and the assets. The operator runs the purpose under a written agreement, with clear reporting, a fair share, and a clean exit if it fails. The land is never pledged for the operator's business.

KM 090 · Our work

What we do.

• Read the land, its access, its permission and its neighbourhood before proposing any purpose.
• Test purposes against the arithmetic, and keep only those that survive.
• Design the purpose at the right weight: light build, reversible where possible.
• Select and contract the operator, and set reporting and governance.
• Coordinate architects, permission consultants and lawyers through to opening.
• Review the purpose each year, and help the family decide whether to grow, hold or change it.

KM 108 · Limits

What we don't do.

• We do not design heavy resorts on expensive land, because the arithmetic rarely holds.
• We do not run hotels, venues or farms ourselves.
• We do not promise occupancy, income or any return.
• We do not publish clients' designs or business plans.

KM 126 · Fees

How it's paid.

Value design begins with a Ground Session or a Land Value Brief, both credited against what follows. Larger design work is paid as a shared upside above the return the family agrees with us, set per project and agreed in writing before work begins.

That structure means we earn more only when the family does, and only above a line the family has chosen.

KM 144 · Before you build

Questions to ask before you build.

1. Does the zone permit this purpose, and is the permission in hand?
2. What does the arithmetic look like at half the expected occupancy?
3. How much of the build could be removed or changed if the purpose changes?
4. Who will run it, and what happens if they leave?
5. Does the family keep control of the land, whatever the operator does?
6. What will neighbours, the panchayat and the road make of the guests?
7. What does this purpose leave the next generation?

The full logic, with illustrative figures, is on the approach page.