Wrong Address Check for Cool Places

The Plan

Langenfeld aimed to list at least twenty air-conditioned spaces by 5 August 2026. The form sat at https://beteiligung.nrw.de/k/1028781(öffnet in neuem Tab). Submissions were to reach [email protected] or Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 1 by post.

What Actually Happened

On 5 August 2026 twenty-eight records had arrived. Twelve named streets in Monheim or Hilden. Staff cross-checked each entry against the residents’ register and land registry. Three businesses listed rooms open only on weekdays.

The Costs

Manual verification took sixteen hours. At an internal rate of 48 euros per hour the bill reached 768 euros. Two site visits had to be rescheduled because address fields were incomplete.

The Alternative

A simple postcode filter at form submission would have rejected invalid addresses immediately. The participation platform offered no built-in geofence. A separate check on the city’s own site was feasible yet never activated.

Only six valid entries reached the dedicated inbox. The rest landed in the general mailbox and waited four days for forwarding.

One record carried an incorrect opening time. The note “daily 8–20” applied solely to July. A follow-up call corrected the entry.

The 1 August form version allowed unrestricted text fields. Four submissions therefore contained promotional copy instead of plain addresses.

The city is now examining whether a future release can validate street and number fields against an external address database. Until then the list stays incomplete.