We all know it: the tedious search for an appointment at the Citizens Registration Office. The hotline is busy, hardly any online appointments are free. It can happen that you have to drive from Prenzlauer Berg to Heiligensee to apply for passports for the children.

It’s not always because there are no free appointments. Many register at least twice because they want to be sure of an appointment first before they look for one in a citizens’ registration office that is easier for them to reach.

Ex-mayor of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Monika Herrmann (Greens) had therefore made the suggestion that fines be imposed if someone misses their appointment or does not cancel. The CDU (here in the “Tagesspiegel Checkpoint”) considers that too much administrative work.

The Senate’s idea cannot be implemented in the very short term either: it wants to open five new Citizens’ Registration Offices. Now the slashing and stabbing begins as to who gets it. In any case, the SPD and the left in Marzahn-Hellersdorf have already raised their hands and called on the district office to campaign for a new citizens’ office in the district. The Tagesspiegel newsletter for Marzahn-Hellersdorf is now reporting on this – it is available in full at leute.tagesspiegel.de.

“When it comes to a concrete location proposal, the specific population development in the individual districts should be taken into account,” demand the district chairman of the Marzahn-Hellersdorf Left Party, Kristian Ronneburg, and the chairman of the left-wing faction in the BVV Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Bjoern Tielebein.

Both earlier locations such as in Marzahn-Nordwest and another location in the Hellersdorfer Großsiedlung could be considered for this. “The former House of Health, which is to be reactivated, would be a municipal location in which future citizen services could also be offered close to the settlement area.”

The SPD, who appoints the district mayor, sees itself directly in the obligation to deliver. Günther Krug, chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, says in a statement: “Together with district mayor Gordon Lemm, we will develop a location proposal that takes into account accessibility, financing and regional demand on site and present it in the BVV.”

New citizen registration offices are also being planned in other districts – for example at the other end of the city, in Berlin-Staaken. The Spandau newsletter from the Tagesspiegel recently reported on this again. City Councilor Gregor Kempert, SPD, said a month ago to the newsletter: “By 2023 at the latest, we want to open a new citizens’ office in the Staaken-Center.” This means the shopping center in the 20,000-people large housing estate Heerstraße-Nord. In the Staaken-Center ( built in 1975) the district is already tenants, for example with its district library.”The need for citizen services is very high in Staaken. There is a lot of concentration, new construction, so we want to expand the offer and offer services closer to the site,” says Kempert However, there is no firm commitment yet.

However, this does not always mean that there are automatically more citizen registration offices in the districts. Another location in Berlin-Spandau is on the verge of closure: It is more than unclear whether the Citizens’ Registration Office in Falkenhagener Feld will open again after the long Corona closing time. The numbers in Kladow, on the other hand, are better: the local Citizens’ Registration Office is scheduled to reopen in the summer of 2022 after a two-year break. That was planned earlier, but then there were problems with the renewal of the technology. This is at least felt like a new citizen office.

[More than 260,000 subscriptions and once a week from your neighborhood: The Tagesspiegel district newsletter with news, debates, tips and dates is available at leute.tagesspiegel.de]

Here are the topics that you will find in the current issue of the Tagesspiegel newsletter for Marzahn-Hellersdorf.

Exchange of ideas: “Marzahn – what do you dream of?”

And here are the topics that you can read in the current Spandau newsletter:

By the way, in our newsletters from Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Spandau, Tempelhof-Schoeneberg and of course in all other district people newsletters from the Tagesspiegel, you can find out about the birthdays of friends, life partners, relatives, neighbors, colleagues, business partners etc. or congratulate yourself with a few nice words. Write to our authors, whose e-mail addresses you will find in the newsletters.