BATON ROUGE - A dozen homes in the Willow Ridge subdivision and Woman's Hospital will be annexed into the city of Baton Rouge if the proposed city of St. George is created.

The Metro Council passed the requests by a 9-2 vote Wednesday evening. More than two dozen other homeowners in Willow Ridge near Jefferson Highway and Bluebonnet are content to become part of the new city, citing worries of limited access to fire services and Public Works should they stay.  

The houses asking to remain in Baton Rouge are scattered. Annexation would break apart the neighborhood. A bank and other commercial properties also requested annexation.

The proposed city of St. George has been a continued controversial debate over the years. Less than a month after the vote passed in October 2019, Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome filed a lawsuit to block the decision.

That highly controversial legal battle to create St. George is ongoing. No trial date has been set.