Fifteen property owners in Willow Ridge subdivision in the prospective city of St. George—more than one-third of the total in the 41-lot development—have filed petitions requesting annexation into the city of Baton Rouge.
The requests were filed with the Metro Council’s office Wednesday in four separate petitions. One petition seeks annexation for one lot; two others seek annexation for three lots each. A fourth seeks annexation for eight lots and also for Willow Bay, a man-made lake in the subdivision owned jointly by property owners directly on the lake.
All 15 properties are on Willow Bay Drive, which is immediately contiguous to Baton Rouge city limits on its west side.
Bill Benedetto, well known for his years as Entergy Louisiana’s corporate spokesperson, is among the residents seeking annexation.
He says he and his neighbors have been discussing it for months and decided to file because they want to be part of Baton Rouge.
“We’ve always considered ourselves Baton Rouge residents and our address is Baton Rouge and we just felt like we didn’t want to change,” Benedetto says. “We like the city, being part of the city and want to continue to live in the home of the world champion LSU Tigers.”
Benedetto says once several property owners had decided to go ahead and request annexation, he sent a notice to all Willow Ridge property owners to let them know and eventually heard back from several others who decided to follow suit.
“There were no hard feelings,” he says. “It was just a matter of preference.”
The annexation requests are the first from groups of property owners within a subdivision that are seeking to become part of the city. If approved by the Metro Council, which has signed off on all the other annexation requests it has received, Willow Ridge will be the first subdivision to include properties both within the city of Baton Rouge and the city of St. George, provided St. George survives a current court challenge and is eventually incorporated.
But attorney Charles Landry, who filed the petitions on behalf of the residents, says the situation will not be any different than in any neighborhood that is on the border of the two cities.
“Some lots will be in the city of Baton Rouge and some will not,” he says. “It’s no different than what St George did in deciding what they wanted to be in their prospective city. When police or fire get a call for service, they simply respond to the municipal address making the call, as they do now.”
St. George spokesman Drew Murrell was unaware of the petitions and questioned why property owners would want to be in the city of Baton Rouge, when “it will increase their property taxes immediately upon annexation.”
Baton Rouge city residents pay slightly higher millages than those in the unincorporated parts of the parish.
Murrell also questioned the legality of the petition filings, arguing they were filed after the “certification process.”
Landry, however, counters that while the election last fall in which voters approved incorporating St. George was certified, the incorporation of the prospective city is still tied up in court and has not been certified.
“The parish attorney has reviewed this and advised the council on numerous occasions that the St. George position is wrong,” Landry says. “The clock doesn’t begin to tick until after the final judgment is obtained on the litigation and all appeals have lapsed.”
