Las Urbanistas

LAS VEGAS, March 13 — With a deafening rumble and a cloud of debris that has become all but customary in this city of short-lived icons, the venerable Stardust Hotel-Casino was demolished early this morning.

The spectacular demolition ended a yearlong farewell to a classic 48-year-old resort that was, in its heyday, considered the ultimate in luxury and style.

It was a frequent haunt of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack, the original Las Vegas Strip home of the illusionist duo Siegfried and Roy, and the scene of reputed organized crime activity that inspired the book and film “Casino.”

In Las Vegas, where old structures are dismissed as soon as they outlive their usefulness, the Stardust was cleared to make way for a new $4 billion, 5,300-room mixed-used complex called Echelon due to be built by 2010 by Boyd Gaming Inc.

Hundreds of invited guests and corporate officials watched the demolition from across a parking lot on the Las Vegas Strip, the street of major hotels and casinos that runs through the heart of the city. The building came down at 2:30 a.m. local time.

“It’s always a little sad to see these places go, but that place was so old and gross — and old and gross don’t belong in Vegas,” said Jeff Remini, 49, of Los Angeles. Mr. Remini added two days to his vacation here after hearing that the demolition was planned for this morning.

Four grandsons of Boyd’s chief executive, William Boyd, pushed a wooden lever that signaled to the demolition crew to begin the series of dynamite explosions that caused the collapse of a 32-story tower built in 1989 and a nine-story low-rise structure that was an original part of the resort, built in 1958.

Fireworks marked the 10-second countdown in front of the buildings before the explosives were touched off. A planned laser light show was canceled when unexpectedly strong winds blew a cloud of dust toward the audience.

Las Vegas has become known in recent decades for tearing down the notable resorts that first put the Strip on the map.

Famous places like the Dunes, the Hacienda and the Sands have been replaced by the Bellagio, the Mandalay Bay and the Venetian.

“The Stardust was the Bellagio of its day, the most dazzling casino out there,” said Nicholas Pileggi, who spent four years researching the exploits of Frank Rosenthal, the mobster who ran the Stardust, for his bestselling nonfiction book “Casino” and the fictionalized screenplay for the Robert DeNiro film of the same name. “But time moves on,” Mr. Pileggi said.

The oldest casino structure on the Strip now is a part of a coffee shop at the Sahara that dates back just 55 years.

“Unlike most other cities, we in Las Vegas reinvent ourselves all the time,” said Mr. Boyd. “In order to keep up with the competition, you have to keep improving your product. That’s what we’re going to do here at the Stardust. But we still have great memories.”

Some are not so accepting of the changes. Joel Rosales, 23, owns the Web site LeavingLV.net, which pays tribute to each property that is razed.

The loss of the Stardust, he said, is particularly disappointing. “Having been born and raised here in Vegas, it’s always been a rock,” he said of the resort. “In this ever-changing city, the Stardust was always there. I wouldn’t say I’m as upset as I am disappointed, that we as a city have no sense of preserving our past and heritage, no matter how tacky or out-of-date it may be.”

Mark Loizeaux, whose company, Controlled Demolition Inc., has overseen the demolition, or “implosion,” of every major Strip structure since the Dunes was taken down in 1993, understands such sentiments.

“With the demolition of these structures, there’s a lot of change,” Mr. Loizeaux said. “We try to honor structures by making a show that lets it have one last day on the front pages of the paper.”

LOS ANGELES — It’s a short trip from the excesses of Beverly Hills to the despair of skid row. Few architects bother to make it.

Michael Maltzan is an exception. Long a darling of wealthy art world patrons, he is now laboring on the most extravagant project of his career: a 28,000-square-foot glass house for the former Hollywood powerbroker Michael Ovitz. But since opening his office here in 1995, Mr. Maltzan has also devoted part of his creative energy to a string of projects in a derelict section of downtown Los Angeles that has become one of the nation’s most notorious homeless encampments.

 

His first solo project there, Inner-City Arts, completed in 1995 and expanded in 2002, was an entrancing enclave of sculptured stucco-clad buildings — a theater, library, teaching spaces and ceramics studios — for after-school arts programs at the edge of skid row. Now, he has returned with two new housing complexes for the area: a recently completed 89-unit project for the chronically homeless and mentally ill and a 100-unit apartment complex for the homeless elderly and physically disabled that is scheduled to break ground this summer.

In an age when so much architectural talent seems to serve the aspirations of a wealthy, cultured elite or to deliver a wow factor for arts tourists, the project is a refreshing rarity. Bold and communally minded, with flashes of genuine elegance, the two housing complexes reassure you that a keen architectural intelligence and a social conscience are not necessarily at odds. In a better world, the projects would emerge as a model for a far-reaching architectural and social agenda.

The projects, known as the Rainbow Apartments and the New Carver Apartments and run by the nonprofit Skid Row Housing Trust, reflect changing thinking about how best to reintegrate the homeless into society. Small in scale, the complexes have a prominent visual relationship to the community. On-site providers of support services, from social workers to health care professionals, are situated where they are most needed: in the building where these people live.

Given the tight budget requirements — a deplorable constant for almost any housing project intended for the poor — there was little room for subtle touches. Instead Mr. Maltzan strove to enliven the $10 million Rainbow Apartments with a series of bold, straightforward design moves. The windows along the simple stucco exterior are arranged in a rhythmic, asymmetrical pattern and framed by bright red galvanized metal light shades. Inside, the first floor is mostly devoted to the social and medical services, the project’s literal and metaphorical base.

Tenants ascend a bright red staircase to reach the apartment level. The staircase narrows as it rises, giving you a sense of acceleration. From the top of the stair, tenants pass beneath the bridgelike form of the community room before entering a small courtyard framed by five stories of apartments on three sides.

Because of the pressure to limit costs, many of the details that Mr. Maltzan had first hoped to include in the design were eliminated. Perhaps most important, he had to drop a series of metal scrims that would have shaded the walkways overlooking the courtyard, lending the space a more ethereal, filtered aura. The big plate-glass windows he sought for the community kitchen and laundry room to forge a strong visual connection with the courtyard were also rejected as too expensive.

Yet the architecture was strong enough to resist defeat. The building’s general layout is a loose interpretation of the Spanish-style courtyard apartment buildings that have been a staple of Los Angeles architecture since the late 19th century. Mr. Maltzan’s emphasis is on communal spaces: the main entry staircase is conceived as an informal hangout for tenants; the open-air walkways that overlook the courtyard connect to a communal kitchen and common room, further breaking down the sense of isolation.

Mr. Maltzan reinforces all this by visually weaving the protective inner world of the housing complex into the rough-and-tumble fabric of the city outside. At each level, the walkways that line the interior court wind around to the outside of the building, offering views over downtown rooftops. From one upper-level staircase, tenants can gaze upon their own past: the lost souls and makeshift cardboard shelters that litter skid row. Just beyond are the twinkling, crystalline towers of downtown Los Angeles, a juxtaposition that conjures the sly social subtext (walking dead versus corporate suits) of a George A. Romero zombie movie.

Mr. Maltzan will have a chance to refine his ideas in his design for the $15 million Carver Apartments, a circular six-story building planned for a site along the elevated 110 Freeway, a mile or so to the southwest.

Like Rainbow, Carver is set around a central court, but its form promises to offer more formal drama. Nestled against the freeway, the cylindrical exterior is broken up into a series of vertical bands, creating a sawtooth pattern on the facade that is a subtle play on the relationship between the individual and the collective. It will also be visible to commuters driving by on the freeway, underscoring the idea that this is not about keeping the poor out of sight.

Mr. Maltzan hopes to anchor the Carver design firmly in the outside world without losing the sense of a sanctuary. The ground-floor social services offices will be more open to the street, with big shop windows. And as tenants climb to the upper stories, the communal spaces will offer carefully framed views of the surrounding city.

The wedge-shaped laundry and community room on the third floor is set at the exact level of the freeway, so that tenants can virtually make eye contact with drivers inching by in their cars at rush hour. Farther up, a terrace opens onto a sweeping view of the city’s downtown towers — this one more distant and romantic than the view from Rainbow.

Both complexes prove that even as the government turns to underfinanced private institutions to help care for the poor, it is possible to push for innovative and humane design. Here architecture is used as a tool not only for aesthetic upliftment, but also to forge both a strong sense of community and a visual presence for the poor in a city that often seems to have forgotten them.

Shocking, isn’t it? Imagine if this became a commonplace.

As black smoke plumes rose from the hills below his Anaheim Hills estate Monday, Dave Blunk stood near the fire-scorched putting green in his yard and described how his house withstood the 20-foot flames.

When he built on the hillside three years ago, “I told the architect to anticipate a fire burning right up to my house,” said Blunk, 46, who installed a water line big enough for a fire hose and built the home with concrete and steel.

On Sunday morning, the Windy Ridge fire, sparked by an arsonist and fanned by gusts, quickly chewed through more than 2,000 acres near Anaheim Hills’ multimillion-dollar homes.

Though it crackled into and over Blunk’s estate in the gated Pointe Premier community, the only remnants of the fire were scorched plants, the burned putting green and ashes in his pool.

Blunk’s brush with the Windy Ridge blaze, expected to be contained by noon today, points to a major reason Anaheim Hills emerged unscathed — the newer neighborhoods, in such a tinderbox that local firefighters recently used the chaparral-coated hills as a case study, were built to withstand Southern California’s ferocious blazes.

The sole house damaged has a wood-shake roof — a rarity in a place that features some of Orange County’s priciest real estate, with multi-acre lots big enough to keep horses.

“That’s what gave us a chance,” said Patrick McIntosh, Orange County Fire Authority assistant chief. “It was very, very aggressive firefighting, on the air and on the ground — and having homes that were actually defensible.”

Near the 91 Freeway and the 241 toll road, the Windy Ridge fire began about 8 a.m. Sunday when an arsonist torched a white 2004 Honda Civic reported stolen in Riverside County, said fire officials, who are scouring toll road video for clues.

Stoked by weather that has made this one of Southern California’s driest years ever, the fire raced toward Anaheim Hills and Orange, forcing the evacuation of about 1,200 people and destroying two outbuildings.

Rising humidity overnight helped firefighters corral the blaze, which has cost at least $1.5 million to fight.

In Riverside County, comparable heat and winds fueled the Sierra fire near Lake Mathews, which seared nearly 1,000 acres after it began Sunday but has been controlled.

As Monday dawned, Anaheim Hills residents who returned after evacuations were lifted surveyed the blackened hillsides, stunned that more homes weren’t charred.

“I was worried sick last night … this is way too close,” said Alan Ford, 32, who was checking on his home under construction on Anaheim’s eastern edge.

Other factors contributed to what fire officials were lauding as a textbook example of taming wind-stoked flames.

There was a massive response, in part by firefighters converging on Southern California as a precaution during the heat and dry winds before the blaze began. Also, the tempestuous corridor that last burned years ago was well-known to local firefighters.

Little more than a year ago, a controlled burn erupted into a blaze just across the 241 toll road that consumed 10,500 acres and forced the evacuation of more than 2,000 homes.

And last month, firefighters used the Windy Ridge area as a part of a training exercise. They pored over maps and even took a field trip to the steep hills.

“You have to prepare in your mind, and we did that in this case,” said Fire Authority Capt. Glenn Sekius, who works at Fire Station 10 in nearby Yorba Linda.

“So the guys out here, they know the terrain; they know the fuels.”

That knowledge was swiftly transmitted to the 800 firefighters tackling the blaze, some of whom had traveled from as far as Monterey — before the fire started.

For the last few years, the state has treated Southern California’s fire season as year-round and tried to ensure that major fires don’t overtax county departments, officials said.

When blistering weather hit the region, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection routed crews from Northern California, where fire danger was low, to the Southland.

What particularly aided them, fire officials said, was that many of the homes in Anaheim Hills, some as large as 11,000 square feet, had fire-resistant roofs and that homeowners had cleared their properties.

“There was no vegetation hanging over roofs, nothing was stacked up against the structures, and there were a lot of tile or composite roofs,” said Maria Sabol, an Anaheim Fire Department spokeswoman.

Paved streets and manicured lawns also acted as firebreaks, which were key in an area where coastal moisture feeds chaparral growth and the bone-dry winter had sapped water from vegetation, said Richard Minnich, an earth sciences professor at UC Riverside.

He compared Anaheim Hills to Rancho Cucamonga, a San Bernardino County community of recently constructed homes that survived the 2003 Grand Prix fire. By contrast, in San Bernardino’s Del Rosa neighborhood, another wildfire that same year ravaged 20 mostly older houses.

“Everything in Southern California burns. Even our deserts burn,” Minnich said. “You can’t have a flammable exterior.”

On a street called Overlook Terrace in Anaheim Hills, developer Kang-Shen Chen, 66, had placed a Bible and the Taoist text Tao Te Ching on a rock outside his home just before he evacuated Sunday.

Upon his return, some storage units and an outbuilding had been scorched, but his home and a row of pine and pepper trees came through unscathed.

“It’s a miracle. These books protected us. God blessed us,” he said.

Nevertheless, he plans to hem in the trees with a concrete firebreak.

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garrett.therolf@latimes.com

roy.rivenburg@latimes.com

ashley.powers@latimes.com

Times staff writers David Haldane, Dave McKibben and Maeve Reston contributed to this report.

An Irvine company that was the nation’s largest independent provider of high-risk home loans skidded closer to bankruptcy Monday, stoking fears that the mortgage industry’s woes could further damage a sluggish housing market.

Easy-money loans from New Century Financial Corp. and other lenders specializing in borrowers with poor credit helped fuel the housing boom, swelling the ranks of homeowners with people who could not have qualified for mortgages in years past.

But many of these borrowers turned out to be bad bets after all and are beginning to default, forcing some lenders out of business and leading others to stiffen their lending standards.

That could hurt the housing market by shrinking the pool of eligible buyers. In addition, many homeowners with high-risk loans whose rates will adjust upward in the next year or two won’t be able to refinance into loans with better terms. That could put some into foreclosure.

“If foreclosures continue to mount — and they are already climbing rapidly — we could see a scenario similar to California in the early 1990s, where banks’ sales of foreclosed properties pushed home prices down even further,” said Zach Gast, an analyst at the Center for Financial Research and Analysis, an investment research firm.

In some parts of the state — including the Central Valley, the Inland Empire and San Diego — foreclosures have gone from rare to plentiful in a little more than a year. Real estate appraisers say home values are beginning to be affected.

George Hatch, a San Diego appraiser, said he surveyed a group of his colleagues last week. Almost all of them reported that they were running across distressed sales or foreclosures.

“There is a flip side to exuberance, which is that every party has its hangover,” said Hatch, a 22-year veteran of the business. “When your house loses $100,000 in value, that will make you sick all right.”

The so-called sub-prime lending industry that specializes in loans to risky borrowers has been tormented for months by soured loans, creating huge losses and forcing about three dozen large lenders to be sold to other companies, to file for bankruptcy protection or to close operations altogether.

On Monday, New Century announced that the Wall Street firms that supplied its funding had either cut off fresh capital or were poised to do so, leading some industry observers to say bankruptcy was likely. The company’s stock plunged $1.55, or 48%, on Monday to $1.66 before the New York Stock Exchange halted trading.

Less than a year ago, New Century shares were worth nearly $52 each.

As New Century’s stock sank, those of other sub-prime lenders suffered too. Santa Monica-based Fremont General Corp. fell $1.30, or 16%, to $6.73. The firm said last week that it would exit the business under pressure from regulators.

Homebuilder shares also stumbled on fears that they will have fewer customers. Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. fell 6% and Pulte Homes Inc. dropped nearly 5%.

Also Monday, the nation’s largest mortgage lender — Calabasas-based Countrywide Financial Corp. — said foreclosures were pending on 0.7% of its mortgages, up from 0.47% at the end of February 2006. The company, which makes both prime and sub-prime loans, plans to lay off about 100 people from a sub-prime office in New York, a Countrywide executive said during a conference call Monday.

The collapse in sub-prime is “a warning sign” for California, said Anthony Sanders, professor of finance at Ohio State University and a former Deutsche Bank executive. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we got a [housing market] crash, especially if interest rates rise.”

Scott Simon, a mortgage-bond fund manager for giant Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, cautioned against reading too much into the woes of the sub-prime lending industry.

“There will continue to be bad headlines, mortgages will certainly be tougher to get for [people with low credit scores] and first-time borrowers, but the overall mortgage market should be just fine,” Simon said.

Ray and Ruby Hayes of Yorba Linda aren’t so sure things will work out.

Ray Hayes, 62, said the couple refinanced their home with a sub-prime lender in the spring to get cash to help them make ends meet.

“We had bad credit but were told that in six months we could refinance and get a better loan with a lower interest,” he said. But when they tried to refinance, Hayes said, the lender told them they were not eligible for better terms.

The Hayeses are now months behind in their payments. “Things just spiraled out of control,” he said.

Sub-prime loans were a relatively small market until recently. In 2001 and 2002, they accounted for fewer than 10% of all home loans written in the United States and California, according to Inside B&C Finance, a trade publication.

By 2005, that percentage had more than doubled, to 20.2% in California and 21.5% nationally.

Founded in 1995, just as California was recovering from a recession, New Century was one of the few sub-prime mortgage lenders to weather the last contraction in the industry. That was in late 1998 and 1999, when investors spooked by Russia’s default on its debt refused to buy bonds backed by risky mortgages.

Until recently, at least, the company employed 6,700 people.

“We haven’t told people to go home,” New Century spokeswoman Laura Oberhelman said Monday. “Everybody’s here working.”

As a reporter attempted to interview employees outside the company’s 11-story office tower in Irvine on Monday, Oberhelman interceded, saying they had been warned not to talk to the media. Otherwise, she said, people might comment on “rumors or speculation.”

Analysts say that as the housing market began to cool in 2005, sub-prime lenders tried to maintain their loan volume by loosening standards and cutting rates. That kept the companies in business, experts say, but also resulted in questionable loans to borrowers who couldn’t prove their incomes and made no down payments — expecting to refinance or sell their homes at a profit when their payments shot higher.

As housing prices leveled off or declined, borrowers could no longer refinance or cash out their homes for a profit, triggering a rising tide of defaults, the first step to foreclosure.

The Wall Street firms that buy thousands of loans from originators such as New Century can force the originators to buy back loans that become duds quickly. The lenders then must resell them at a discount in the “scratch and dent” mortgage market. One sub-prime insider compared it to a child who takes a new lollipop out of its wrapper, chews on it for a while, then re-wraps it and hands it back to a parent.

Christopher Cagan, director of research and analytics at First American Real Estate Solutions, anticipated the rise in sub-prime defaults more than a year ago but forecast that the turmoil would be contained.

Monday, he stood by his prediction.

“Some lenders are contracting, others are failing. Wall Street is tightening up. And unfortunately some people — those who bought at the peak and put nothing down — will lose their houses,” he said. “This is part of the business cycle. It will not break the economy.”

PASCAGOULA, Miss., March 12 — The long arm of Hurricane Katrina has pushed thousands off the job and on strike at one of the nation’s biggest shipyards here, workers and union officials say.

On Thursday, nearly 7,000 workers went on strike at the Ingalls shipyard, owned by Northrop Grumman, which builds ships for the Navy. On the picket line Monday, strikers said they were demanding better wages and benefits to make up for sharp post-Katrina increases in the price of everything from milk to gas to rent, which they said are bringing family finances to the breaking point.

The walkout here is believed to be the first major strike related to Hurricane Katrina, which continues to disrupt many aspects of life up and down the Gulf Coast. Few places were as hard-hit as this small industrial town, where the water crept halfway up downtown and the beachfront was wiped out, and workers spoke Monday of losing homes, cars and a way of life to the storm.

They left the shipyard, which has supported this region for decades, after rejecting a modest increase in the $18.32 an hour many now make. Workers here said the wage rise would be wiped out by a steep increase in health insurance premiums, and would be inadequate to counter the storm’s lingering fallout.

They earn some of the highest wages in the area, at Mississippi’s largest employer. But many workers said they were still struggling, speaking of payday loans from the company credit union just to buy gasoline. They said the company’s offer of a $2.50-per-hour raise over three years was not good enough, with local rents and house prices having doubled, in some cases, and a $2.59 gallon of milk now costing $4.19. Throw in a proposed $50-per-month health premium increase, and the raise disappears, they said.

“Folks have already been through a hard time with Katrina,” said Willie Hammond, a forklift driver and father of three. “They left their houses to get this company up and running, and this is how they show their appreciation? It was an insult to the employees, that little offer they made us.”

Bill George, a pipe welder, said prices in the area had quadrupled since the storm. “Half the people here are living in trailers,” he said.

Natasha Smith, a painter, said her rent had risen to $801 a month, from $669. “We’re single parents, and we can’t make it on what they’re paying us,” she said.

A company spokesman said Monday that there were no plans for negotiations. In a statement, Northrop Grumman said its offer was “fair and competitive,” and noted that other company plants in the region had accepted it. The company added: “It was our desire that this labor agreement address the financial challenges of Katrina, and we believe the proposed contract did just that.” Workers sharply disputed that contention, however.

“Katrina took everything, and now they’re trying to take the main thing, our dignity,” said Shirley Hayes, who oversees shipments on the assembly line. “They’re just playing us cheap,” she said.

John Reed, an electrician, said, “We’re living out here paycheck to paycheck, and we’re tired of it.”

Like other strikers, Mr. Reed was standing near the dusty median of the plant’s long entrance road, which was picket central on Monday. The strikers had set up tents and barbecue grills in the mild spring weather, and the blues blared from giant speakers. The shipyard’s major projects — a giant destroyer and several transport ships — loomed in the distance on the Mississippi Sound, and seagulls whirled overhead.

The shipyard has been a mainstay in Pascagoula since before World War II. Dozens of businesses here depend on its paychecks, and at quitting time the local roads are clogged. The destroyer Cole was repaired here after the terrorist attack on its hull, and over the years the yard has turned out cruisers, destroyers, submarines and ammunition ships.

Workers have not struck the plant since 1999, and local officials speak fearfully about the effects of a prolonged strike. Still, there appeared to be considerable support for the workers in town — grocery stores have donated ice, water and hot dogs.

With the company not budging, the strikers were vowing to settle in for the long haul. “If we can survive Katrina, we can survive this,” Mr. Reed said.

Indeed, the workers here displayed a remarkable nonchalance about the hardships ahead. Bobby Hinger, the steward of the carpenters’ shop, stayed at the plant during the storm, water up to his neck. Then, he said: “They gave us a steak dinner and a jacket that don’t fit us, and they said, ‘See ya.’ This isn’t about being greedy. It’s about being paid what we’re worth.”

Fairfax County Policy Will Promote Pedestrian-Friendly Areas Near Stations

By Amy Gardner and Bill Turque; Washington Post Staff Writers; Tuesday, March 13, 2007; B01

Fairfax County embraced a new policy yesterday encouraging dense, pedestrian-friendly development near current and future transit stations, continuing the transformation of car-friendly suburban neighborhoods.

The policy, approved unanimously by the county Board of Supervisors, will promote “compact” development with a mix of housing, office space and retail stores within a half-mile of rail stations. The most intensive development would lie within a quarter-mile of stations. Fairfax is home to 10 transit stations, five for Metro and five for Virginia Railway Express.

The point, supervisors and the new policy say, is to create communities that encourage walking, biking and transit use to reduce sprawl and automobile travel.

Another purpose is to create a clear definition of so-called transit-oriented development — a term that means different things to different people.

Last June, for example, the county approved MetroWest, a development of 2,250 homes as well as office and retail space at the Vienna Metro station, over the objections of residents who said the proposal lacked the mix of uses and neighborhood input needed for successful transit-oriented development. Previously, the county blocked a nearby neighborhood from selling to a developer who planned to build a high-rise project, on the grounds that the community was too far from the Metro station to qualify for the label.

Another proposal for 1,800 homes near Hunter Mill Road and the Dulles Toll Road — more than a mile from a planned Metro station — also was blocked.

“This makes very good progress in defining what transit-oriented development is and where it should be,” said Supervisor Sharon S. Bulova (D-Braddock).

The county’s new policy will clarify the term primarily by setting a geographic boundary for transit-oriented development. It creates a radius roughly equal to about a 10-minute walk — generally the limit of how far people can be expected to walk to a station rather than drive.

The policy also gives neighborhoods the opportunity to help frame plans for development around nearby transit stations, promising “a broadly inclusive, collaborative, community participation process.” And it requires adaptability to the unique characteristics of particular neighborhoods. The radius of high-density development, for instance, could be expanded in neighborhoods that are already walkable, and shortened in places filled with wide, hard-to-cross highways.

Requiring input from existing neighborhoods was a key goal of residents who helped develop the policy, many of whom worried about the possibility of dense developments.

“They’re paying a price for having transit-oriented development next door,” said Deborah Reyher of Vienna, a representative of the Oakdale Park Civic Association. “They shouldn’t be the next domino in the chain.”

In other business, the board resolved, for the third time and second in two months, to tell Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) that it prefers a tunnel under Tysons Corner rather than an elevated track as part of a Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport.

And, for the third time, the board stopped short of asking Kaine to halt the project and replace the elevated design with a tunnel. Instead, it voted unanimously to ask that Kaine impose an open and competitive bidding process that includes the option of a tunnel.

The state and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which will oversee construction of the project, are in negotiations with Dulles Transit Partners, a consortium headed by Bechtel Corp., on a price for the first phase of the 23-mile extension. To qualify for $900 million in federal funding, the entire project must meet strict federal cost guidelines, currently estimated to have a cap of $2.5 billion. The rail project is estimated to cost $2.4 billion.

Negotiations were expected to be complete by the end of February. The delay has led to speculation that Bechtel’s asking price is beyond the federal cost cap and that state officials are struggling to negotiate a lower price. Because the project is going forward under the provisions of the state’s Public-Private Transportation Act, discussions about contract terms are allowed to remain secret.

Kevin Hall, a spokesman for Kaine, characterized the talks as “intense, complicated and lengthy,” but said he expected them to be successfully concluded within the next 10 days to two weeks. Kaine has maintained that federal funds would be jeopardized if the tunnel option was seriously pursued.

Members of the county board, which is not directly involved in negotiations, said a lack of transparency in the process leads them to suspect that they are party to a “lose-lose” situation, in which the county will be stuck with a less-desirable rail option at an inflated cost.

The board also expressed concern about the airport authority’s role. Because it cannot assume control until contract negotiations are completed, board members said, it is in the authority’s interest to speed the process along. The board also questioned the authority’s decision to use one of its own contractors, Carter-Burgess, to evaluate a tunnel proposal.

“At this point, what we are most concerned about is the process,” said Supervisor Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence), who co-sponsored the resolution with Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) and Supervisors T. Dana Kauffman (D-Lee) and Joan M. DuBois (R-Dranesville). “We don’t want to write the check without the opportunity to look at the bill first.”

Board members said they decided to again push Kaine on the tunnel issue after he said on a radio program that the rail project “is ultimately about the will of the people locally,” and said if officials in Fairfax and Loudoun counties and the airports authority asked him to drop the aerial design, he would.

But the board stopped short of asking for that.