A subdivision name that is actually in the county's property records — detached houses of the mid-1940s into the 1950s along Yorktown Boulevard, off North Glebe Road in 22207.
A great many Arlington neighborhood names are listing catchments: labels typed into an MLS field that correspond to no plat, no association and no county map. Shirley Woods is not one of them. It appears as a subdivision name in county property records, which makes it searchable in the one system that matters and gives an appraiser a defensible set to draw comparables from. It sits in north Arlington's 22207, along Yorktown Boulevard off North Glebe Road, and the housing is detached single-family.
The Shirley in Shirley Woods invites an assumption worth correcting early: it does not place the neighborhood near Shirlington or the Shirley Highway corridor at the southern end of the county. This is north Arlington, 22207, off North Glebe Road — a different part of the county with different commuting patterns, a different zoning mix and a different set of comparables. If you have been sent listings on the strength of the name, check the address against a map before you build a search around it.
The construction era generally given for Shirley Woods — detached houses from the mid-1940s into the 1950s — comes from brokerage listing descriptions rather than a recorded plat or a county history, so confirm the year built for any specific house against county records. If the era holds, it tells you what to inspect. Houses of that vintage in Arlington were not built to the footprints buyers now expect, and the questions that decide value are which systems have actually been replaced, whether a finished basement or an addition was permitted and closed out, and whether the lot has room under the zoning district's coverage cap for what you want to add. Original plaster, single-pane windows, undersized electrical service and cast-iron waste lines are all normal findings, not deal-breakers, but they belong in the number.
Shirley Woods has no civic association specific to it — this part of the county falls under the Yorktown and Rock Spring associations — and no mandatory homeowners association. There are no dues, no architectural review committee and no resale certificate when you sell. It also means there is no neighborhood body that will answer a question for you before you buy, so county staff and the recorded documents are the sources. What constrains a change to a house is the zoning district, the county's tree preservation ordinance, Resource Protection Area buffers where a parcel touches a stream, and the Expanded Housing Options rules, which were in force as of August 2026 while the challenge sat with the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Arlington Public Schools assigns every county address to a neighborhood elementary, middle and high school, and the division redraws attendance boundaries periodically — this county has done so more than once in recent years. Run the exact address through the division's own boundary locator rather than relying on the school fields in a listing, which are copied forward and go stale. That habit is a good summary of how to read anything written about Shirley Woods: much of the copy circulating for this name is adjectival rather than factual. The items you can actually check are the recorded subdivision name, the year built, the zoning district, the permit history and the current school assignment.
Shirley Woods sits within Arlington — that guide covers the zoning, permitting and site constraints that apply across the wider area.
Artur can confirm what applies to a specific address here — lot, zoning, association documents and school assignment — before you write an offer.
