Hillside neighborhood that pays for its own roads could get a bigger road contract

Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance has asked the Assembly to approve a road maintenance contract for South Goldenview, a Hillside neighborhood whose property owners pay for their own roads, that would cap spending at $800,000 a year, up from a $600,000 yearly cap under the contract awarded in 2021. The Assembly takes it up Tuesday, Oct. 20, on its consent agenda.

South Goldenview is a rural road service area. Hillside road service areas levy a property tax on the parcels inside them and pay a contractor out of that fund rather than from general city taxes, Alaska News reported Aug. 30. Property owners there pay 1.80 mills for the service area this year, according to the city's 2026 mill levy table, about $900 a year on a home assessed at $500,000. They don't pay the levy for the Anchorage Roads and Drainage Service Area, which pays for road maintenance in the Anchorage Bowl.

It began as the South Goldenview Area Limited Road Service Area, created by the Assembly in 1981. In service areas like it, a locally elected board decides what work gets done and directs the contractor, according to the city.

Earlier repairs

In August, the administration sought $305,000 more on the current contract to repair erosion from ice buildup and spring runoff, Alaska News reported. The Assembly had already approved up to $200,000 from the area's savings for the same kind of work in 2024.

The new contract

The work includes snow clearing, sanding, steam thawing, grading and culvert clearing, and the contract also allows limited road construction. Northern Gravel & Trucking, which has maintained the area since 2021, bid $716,825. The other bidder, Smithsons, bid $1,155,875, according to the Assembly memorandum.

The first term runs through Aug. 31, 2027. Four one-year renewals at the same unit prices, each subject to mutual agreement and funding, would bring the contract's total ceiling to $4 million.