A north Arlington neighborhood whose civic association traces to 1945 and whose 1995 Neighborhood Conservation Plan drew more than $1 million in county improvements.
In Arlington, Yorktown means three things, and confusing them costs buyers time. There is Yorktown the neighborhood, Yorktown High School, and Yorktown Boulevard - and an address on the boulevard is not necessarily in the neighborhood, while a house in the neighborhood is not automatically assigned to the school. This page is about the neighborhood. Its civic organization has an unbroken lineage: it began as the Milburn Terrace Subdivision Association in 1945 and became the Yorktown Civic Association in 1992. Marymount University adjoins it.
Sort this out first. Yorktown High School is one of Arlington's three comprehensive high schools, and Arlington Public Schools assigns students to it by address through attendance boundaries that are periodically redrawn - which means the school's boundary and the neighborhood's boundary are separate lines that do not coincide. Yorktown Boulevard runs well beyond the neighborhood and past several other subdivisions, including Shirley Woods. Before you accept that a listing is in Yorktown, check the recorded subdivision on the deed and the civic association boundary, and confirm any school assignment with APS for that exact address.
Arlington's Neighborhood Conservation program lets a neighborhood adopt a plan and then compete for county capital funding against it. Yorktown completed its plan in February 1995, and it has funded more than $1 million in county improvements since. That is a concrete and checkable difference from neighborhoods without an adopted plan: sidewalks, street trees, lighting and traffic work in an NC neighborhood tend to have been programmed rather than left to chance. The current plan is also the best single document for the neighborhood's own description of its boundaries and priorities.
The Vandenberg mansion, built in stone in 1855, still stands at 5115 Little Falls Road. A later owner, George Saegmuller, held 39 patents - he worked in precision instruments - and the property's history is a reminder that this ground was in private hands long before the postwar subdivisions arrived. Land title in this part of Arlington traces back to colonial grants of 1649, which is roughly three centuries of record before the first modern plat.
The Yorktown Civic Association is a voluntary civic organization, not a mandatory homeowners association; it does not assess your title or review your exterior plans. Yorktown is not a local historic district, so no Certificate of Appropriateness is required. What governs a project is the zoning district's height, setback and lot coverage limits, Arlington's tree preservation ordinance, and stormwater rules on added impervious area. Arlington's Expanded Housing Options rules apply to R-5 through R-20 lots and remained in force as of August 2026 with the case pending before the Supreme Court of Virginia, so any lot valuation resting on redevelopment potential should be run against the current posture rather than a prior headline.
Yorktown 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.
