Minneapolis residents won a battle over a controversial development. Then the city changed the law.

When Ingrid Alexander goes into her backyard, the walls of a four-story apartment complex tower above her. Dozens of windows — a few of them broken — look down on her house. She now keeps her curtains permanently drawn and has given up using her three-season porch, feeling watched all the time.

Alexander, who is supported by many of her neighbors from the Willard-Hay neighborhood in north Minneapolis, is suing the city for giving the Plymouth Avenue Apartments large zoning code variances that allowed it to push closely against its next-door neighbors.

Their case follows city officials’ efforts to create a more permissive environment for multifamily housing development in Minneapolis, which was intended to increase density and keep rents affordable but have in some instances pitted homeowners against developers.

At one of two buildings that make up the Plymouth Avenue Apartments, developer Matrix Development got the front yard setback reduced from 28 feet to 4 feet, and the side yard setback reduced to zero. At the other building, the front yard setback was reduced from 35 feet to 3 feet, with the side yard setback reduced to one foot.

Alexander filed the suit in 2023, before the apartments were constructed, in hopes of stopping them. But the buildings rose up fast.

By last July, when Hennepin County Judge Christian Sande ruled in Alexander’s favor by finding the city “did not have a rational basis” for granting the variances, construction was wrapping up and people were about to move in. Matrix Development and Alexander would have to attend an evidentiary hearing to determine an appropriate remedy for her “as opposed to ordering removal of the offending structures,” the judge wrote.

But before that remedy hearing could happen, the city and developer filed an appeal, and the city changed the zoning code.

In 2023, the city adopted a new zoning code that got rid of many restrictions, such that another project like the Plymouth Avenue Apartments would no longer need the same variances. This didn’t help Matrix Development though, because it had already completed its land use approval process at the time.

But then in November 2024, the city tweaked the zoning code again to say that any variances a developer might have needed in the past — before the city liberalized regulations — were now unnecessary. Together, those amendments had the effect of making the Plymouth Avenue Apartments legal, retroactively.

The city and Matrix Development are now trying to get Alexander’s lawsuit thrown out.

“Everybody keeps saying that they’re not going to tear it down. I’m leaving it up to the man above,” said Alexander. “That was the remedy from the beginning, and I’m sticking with it.”

The land where the Plymouth Avenue Apartments stand had been blighted and underused for many years. A church that occupied part of it had been vacant since 2016.

James Archer, owner of Matrix Development, proposed building energy-efficient housing for seniors and those most in need as his first new-construction affordable housing project in Minneapolis. All of the units in the Plymouth Avenue Apartments would be restricted to people earning no more than 50% of area median income, with 14 units set aside for people with disabilities and formerly homeless people.

The development would fight gentrification by keeping rents low and allowing North Side seniors to age in place, Matrix argued.

“We are currently facing an unprecedented affordable housing crisis in our city,” the company told the city Planning Commission. “Mr. Archer is attempting to address this.”

The Plymouth Avenue Apartments received millions of dollars in public financing.

Individual and organized neighbors, including the Northside Residents Redevelopment Council, were skeptical from the start, but the project proceeded over their objections.

In the first year since the apartments leased up, life in the neighborhood has become more chaotic, neighbors told the Minnesota Star Tribune. They described cars taking up handicapped parking spaces meant for people with disabilities and, with crowded parking on both sides of the street, ambulances getting stuck trying to reach elderly neighbors. Trash and pet waste occasionally accumulate, and some people smoke marijuana out in front of the apartments, neighbors said. Emergency responders have been called to the apartments for domestic abuse, behavioral crises and narcotics, 911 records show.

“I have lived in affordable housing,” said north Minneapolis resident Angelique Kingsbury. “I support affordable housing, but there’s a way to do it, and there’s a certain demographic that needs more support services than what they are being offered.”

Archer declined an interview request with the Minnesota Star Tribune, citing ongoing litigation. So did Asher Gavzy of Property Solutions and Services, the management company.

“Some of the residents we serve are transitioning out of homelessness,” Gavzy said in a statement. “Our focus is on supporting their successful reintegration into the community. PSS is committed to bringing people together through dignified housing and strengthening the neighborhoods we serve.”

City Council Member Jeremiah Ellison, who represents the Willard-Hay neighborhood, said officials eliminated single-family zoning across Minneapolis in order to encourage density, and the Plymouth Avenue corridor was one of the places always expected to see an increase in residents.

“People might be smoking weed, but I don’t think that’s unique to that builder and I don’t think that’s unique to the North Side either,” Ellison said. “I can’t say that this building is a unique problem compared to other buildings across the city, and according to housing staff and the police, I don’t know that the building’s a unique problem or a problem at all.”

Ellison said neighbors need to work with the Plymouth Avenue Apartments to improve quality of life on the block, but, “I don’t know that that mutual desire exists right now.”

In May, the Court of Appeals decided not to weigh in because the city’s new zoning law made the variances at issue void, but the parties could continue to seek relief in the District Court.

The city, Matrix Development and a bevy of north Minneapolis residents met in virtual court on Tuesday, with the city and developer seeking dismissal of the case.

“How can someone sue the city for a legal claim, start getting somewhere and then the city amends its code?” asked Sande, the judge. “Can’t they just keep continuing to change the rules by amending their code to get rid of lawsuits?”

Thomas DeVincke, Alexander’s lawyer, argued that when regulations are changed to make violations retroactively legal, constituents would never be able to challenge any decisions by their government.

Matrix Development’s lawyer Mark Thieroff argued that the city has the authority to regulate land use however it sees fit, without limitations on timing. The neighbors who are upset should take it up with their elected officials — city council members and the mayor — who enact zoning laws through the normal legislative process, he said.

The judge didn’t make a ruling this week. He has 90 days to decide.

When people go in and out of the apartment building on Russell Avenue, the front door slams all day and night, said Alexander. It drives her crazy because her bedroom is just a few steps away from the entrance.

Her neighbor on the other side, Robin Crockett, said their yearslong fight with the city and developer has been a “roller coaster” of emotions.

“We want to move, so we’re getting mad at each other,” she said. “Sometimes around here it gets real intense, because as I don’t want her to go and then she tells me, ‘I’m selling.’ Then I’m [upset] because I’m gonna lose my best neighbor ... We have a strong sense of community here, and it’s been truly disrupted.”