St. Cloud City Council Approves Controversial Apartment Project Despite Neighborhood Opposition

(KNSI) — Despite getting an earful from neighbors, the St. Cloud City Council has given the green light for a 40-unit apartment complex on the former YMCA site.

In a four to three vote, the council approved changing a Planned Unit Development on the vacant lot on Northway Drive to allow Center City Housing to build a three-story facility using the permanent supportive housing model.

Joe Nessler owns a home near the site and was one of thirteen people who spoke against the project. “They want to bring a largely unemployed [population], with no requirements to look for employment, and no requirements for sobriety and bringing them in the community and look at us with a straight face and say it’s not going to affect property values. It’s not going to affect the safety of the community. It just doesn’t make sense.”

CCH operates similar facilities in the area, such as River Heights Apartments. Data showed that in the last six months, there were 62 calls for help made to that complex. The top three issues were for mental health, welfare checks or trespassing, for a total of 37 of those calls. Two were for assaults, and another two were for thefts.

Many others who spoke against the project shared Nessler’s safety concerns, including St. Cloud Technical & Community College President Lori Kloos, who worried the residents might use the campus as a hangout, as they’ve had issues with people in the neighborhood before. Others didn’t think it was the right fit due to its proximity to the Whitney Senior Center, Whitney Park, the St. Cloud YMCA, and nearby medical providers who serve vulnerable populations.

Still fuming after the meeting, Nessler tells KNSI News he feels ignored. “I don’t think the council listened. One of the council members voting for it specifically stated that if it was in his neighborhood, he wouldn’t want it. And it’s clear that they had their minds made up before this.”

Councilman Dave Masters said he wouldn’t want the building there if it were in his backyard, but voted yes anyway. “It was a challenging vote, because when you listen to the citizens, they had some valid reasons, I think. And yet, I think the bigger picture, for me, was that it was desperately needed in the city of St. Cloud.”

The city’s homeless task force met in 2021 and again in 2024 and recommended 100 units to permanently move people off the street.

The proposed new Elm Ridge Apartments will use trauma-informed and harm-reduction housing models to get people suffering from drug addiction, mental illness, and other disabilities into permanent housing. A Center City representative stated the average age of a resident is 35, many are not working, and they view requiring residents to be drug-free as a barrier to getting off the street. It will take another two or three years before the building can open.

CCH is no stranger to the city, having operated the River Crest apartments since 2011 and the adjacent River Heights facility on Lincoln Avenue Southeast since 2023.

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