Venice : 100 at Lincoln Place Rally

About 100 residents of Lincoln Place turned out Sunday for a rally organized by the apartment complex’s tenants group to gather support for their effort to buy the complex.

The 40-acre complex of 795 apartments is the largest concentration of affordable housing in Venice, but it also has considerable potential development value. Owner Jim Coxeter has announced plans to tear down the apartments, replacing them with condominiums and 150 apartments that would be affordable to low-income residents. He has promised the current tenants that they would have first claim on the affordable units.

But organizers of the rally at Penmar Park Recreation Center urged the residents not to trust Coxeter or his promise to relocate elderly and others who need affordable units. Organizers asked for money and volunteers.

“We need to establish a council of war--and a war chest. We need to hire a lawyer who has the teeth of a barracuda,” one organizer said.