BATON ROUGE - There are still plenty of unanswered questions about what could happen if and when a judge officially decides when St. George became a city and the financial implications attached to it.

The lawsuit filed by design firm LRK LLC came after the city of St. George revamped their zoning ordinances earlier this year, changing the number of zoning classifications on properties in the city.

"Which had the effect of down-zoning a number of tracts, I think we counted 79; there may be a few more than that, including all of the tracts of land owned by LRK, at the intersection of Pecue and the interstate," attorney for LRK LLC, Loren Kleinpeter said.

Kleinpeter says they were aware that the city of St. George's incorporation date never being established under state law.

"The state statute speaks prospectively, that the court will determine when a new city that's gone through the process becomes incorporated, not became, so prospectively, that's never happened," Kleinpeter said

Back in 2005, the city of Central incorporated, which East Baton Rouge Metro Councilman Aaron Moak says was not disputed as much as St. George.

"We had our lawsuit that someone made. It did go before the courts and everything, but we worked out at amicable agreement basically with the city-parish at the time under Kip Holden," Moak said.

Moak says state laws have changed since then, and St. George has a bigger commercial landscape and tax base than Central.

"The problem that we're having to deal with right now is, unlike when Central and the judge made the ruling, the judge set the incorporation date. We did not get a set incorporation date with this ruling," Moak said.

Which is not only an important date for St. George, but the city of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish, as Kleinpeter says it has a lot of ramifications.

"Sales tax, when did it start being collected? When do you pick up payment for services provided, retirement plans, and the long-term issue there with the unfunded retirement problems?", Kleinpeter said.

Moak says there are still some questions to be answered, like if a judge rules the incorporation date back to 2019, does money have to be refunded?

Hypothetically, if that were to be the case, the city-parish may owe a pretty penny.

"The numbers have floated around anywhere from, you know, 100 million to 200 million. I know that's widespread. But, you know, everybody comes up with different numbers because they're based on, you know, what services were provided at the time and what would be owed back because of that," Moak said.

Now the city-parish has not officially joined the lawsuit; that decision will be up to a judge next month.