"LRSA" is the acronym for a Limited Road Service Area. Most of us pronounce it, "lursa". When the Anchorage population began to grow into the Hillside area, it became less financially reasonable for the municipality to provide direct road services to the small and isolated pockets of Anchorage residents. The solution was to create small and local areas that controlled their own maintenance schedule. Thus, Anchorage Municipal Code Title 27 created the LRSA system. There are twenty-one individual service areas serving the Hillside. The LRSAs are each managed by an elected board of residents: your road board members are your neighbors and drive the same roads as do you.
The definition from the municipality of Anchorage site: "Limited Road Service Area (LRSA) has limited authority to provide basic road maintenance in the form of grading, dust control, brushing, culvert thawing and replacement, ditching, limited use of tax funds for authorized basic road maintenance services. LRSA’s do not have the ability to save tax funds for capital road projects. Most road service areas on the hillside are LRSA’s."
All road maintenance work is carried out by private contractors for each service area. The Municipality of Anchorage, Department of Street Maintenance, retains access to the funds and administrates all financial aspects of LRSA operations. Residents in a LRSA pay their road taxes, and the taxes are held by the Department of Street Maintenance to be used by the LRSA for maintenance.
Each Board determines the scope of work and directs the contractor doing the road work. The work consists of summer grading, minimal road repair work, pothole repairs, drainage ditch clearing, dust control, snow removal, and ice control. Projects such as installing culverts (we can replace them) and other capital improvements are prohibited by statute.