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Garrett Park's outside-the-box tendencies apparently extend to lot surveying.

Three months into its charge to review and make sense of the sometimes muddled and incomplete zoning rules in Garrett Park, the town's Land Use Task Force has already made headway, including a discovery that true to rumor, all lots in town are not created equal.

After analyzing the shapes of all properties by dividing them into rectangular and irregular categories, the research subcommittee has discovered that 136 homes of 387 in town — about 35 percent — are oddballs.

"We thought that was of interest in how we're going to continue to look at building," said research subcommittee chairwoman Natalie Shelton.

The issue is important because the task force needs to assess whether town setback ordinances, for example, put certain properties at a disadvantage that may possibly be grounds for a variance. If further analysis shows that irregular properties — like the 7 percent of town homes that are wedge-shaped, or the 10 percent that have five or more sides — don't fit the ordinances as written, the task force could recommend that changes be made.

The Land Use Task Force has been meeting since March to scrutinize the town zoning regulations for clarity, function and relevance to what residents want.

The group was formed in response to general outcry surrounding a lawsuit over the town's setback ordinance that made clear the fact that the zoning code was wanting. Especially at issue through that controversy was whether protrusions from a home, such as porches, bay windows and stoops, would be counted in measuring setback and home footprints.

The county does not count them. Garrett Park code is not specific on the issue and so the town does.

The town ordinance reads, in part, that "All buildings on land zoned for single-family residential use hereafter erected or altered shall adhere … to the setback and lot coverage requirements of the Montgomery County Zoning Ordinance and definitions in effect at the time of the application for a building permit …"

Speaking to the Task Force at a meeting Thursday, town attorney David Podolsky explained if the town also intended to exclude protrusions from the calculations, the words "and exceptions" needed to be specifically added to the section, thereby instructing a would-be builder that the same exceptions in the county overlay zone were to be applied in Garrett Park. Because that language is not there, Podolsky said, the exceptions are not valid in town.

Excepting protrusions from setback regulations is a topic that has a lot of popular support among Land Use Task Force members, who could move to recommend adding the necessary language to the ordinance at the next meeting. The Town Council has ultimate discretion about whether to follow the advice of the Task Force.

Gene Brantly, the chairman of the Land Use Task Force, said the first few meetings of the group were administrative, dividing into subcommittees and learning about town code. But now, he said, things are rolling along.

Brantly said a full report from the task force can be expected by the end of this year or early 2010.