Virginia's Disclosure Form Now Has a Line About Military Installations. What Does It Mean in Arlington?

"The owner makes no representations with respect to the property's proximity to any military ground installation, including whether the property may be impacted by related noise or other effects of military operations."

That sentence is item 19 on the Residential Property Disclosure Statement that the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation posts for sellers. The current version is dated effective July 1, 2026. The next sentence on the form tells purchasers to "exercise whatever due diligence a particular purchaser deems necessary to determine whether the property may be adversely impacted." In most Virginia localities this line will barely register. In Arlington, which has a joint base, a national cemetery with a working salute battery, the Pentagon, and helicopter corridors around Reagan National Airport, it points at real and specific activity.

For buyers and sellers here, the point is that this question has no fixed answer to look up. The largest source of military operational noise over Arlington is helicopter traffic, and its boundaries were redrawn in October 2025, made permanent by an interim rule in January 2026, and remain open to change. The form makes the buyer responsible for the homework, and that homework has a date attached to it.

How the line got onto the form

The change came from SB 577 in the 2026 General Assembly session. Sen. Bryce E. Reeves was the patron, and the act took effect July 1, 2026. The bill was signed April 8, 2026, as Chapter 510, and it amends § 55.1-703 of the Code of Virginia, the list of buyer-beware items.

The bill changed shape on its way through. When it was prefiled in January, the introduced text would have expanded Virginia's existing disclosure about military air installations to cover ground noise zones too. The enacted version went into the buyer-beware list instead. Those two approaches lead to different transactions. Under buyer-beware, the seller makes no statement either way, and the work of finding out shifts to the purchaser.

Item 19 also sits beside item 18, which covers aircraft noise near public-use airports and directs buyers to locality, airport, and Virginia Department of Aviation resources. An Arlington home can fall under both lines at the same time, and the sources for each are different.

There is also a timing quirk for contracts signed around the effective date. The Virginia Residential Property Disclosure Act says disclosures must be current when delivered. It also says a seller does not have to re-deliver simply because an amendment to the disclosure takes effect after a properly disclosed contract is ratified and before settlement. This is general information and not legal advice. A buyer or seller with a specific contract question should confirm it with a Virginia real estate attorney or their settlement agent.

What "military operations" means on an Arlington map

The form doesn't list any installations, so the local list has to come from the public record. Here is what that record shows, with the date of each source, because the dates matter.

The Army describes Twilight Tattoo as a performance on select Wednesdays from April through July at Joint Base Myer–Henderson Hall. Its page now lists the 2026 season as ended. When ARLnow covered the show in 2022, it reported that the ceremonial battery could be heard in parts of Arlington. The Army warned that people near the base might hear brief ceremonial gun salutes.

Arlington National Cemetery's Presidential Salute Battery fires ceremonial cannon salutes for inaugurations, visits by foreign dignitaries, funerals of high-ranking officers, July Fourth, and the Army Ten-Miler. The cemetery's 21-gun salute page also lists noon salutes on George Washington's birthday, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day. In 2019, ARLnow reported a training schedule of Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It named Radnor–Fort Myer Heights, Foxcroft Heights, Columbia Heights, Aurora Heights, and Pentagon City as places where residents had heard the cannon reports. That schedule is seven years old. It shows what kind of sound to expect and roughly when, and it says nothing about this year's calendar.

The ceremonial sources are tied to the calendar and largely predictable. Helicopter traffic is the part that has moved.

The helicopter map was redrawn, and the rule is still interim

After the January 29, 2025, midair collision over Reagan National, the FAA rebuilt how helicopters move through Arlington's airspace. In early October 2025, the agency published new charts that shrank the zones where helicopters on authorized business, such as medical or law enforcement missions, can operate. ARLnow reported that part of the Arlington zone, which used to reach east to Fort Myer, was pushed back to west of Glebe Road. The same article said many Arlington residents might no longer see helicopters over their homes, while some others in Northern Virginia might see and hear more.

The FAA's list of actions included permanently closing Route 4 between Hains Point and the Wilson Bridge, requiring ADS-B Out broadcasting under revised military agreements, and stopping takeoffs from the Pentagon heliport until procedures and technical issues there were fixed. On January 23, 2026, the restrictions became an interim final rule in the Federal Register. The rule took effect that day, comments were due February 23, and the Department of Transportation said the FAA would consider them before issuing a final rule. The FAA's March 18, 2026, chronology lists the October 2025 charts and the January interim rule as its latest route actions near DCA. It still describes Pentagon heliport takeoffs as discontinued.

Further changes are built into the process. The National Transportation Safety Board's final report on the collision, issued January 27, 2026, recommends annual reviews of helicopter route charts and a safety-risk review of the routes that remain around DCA. In March 2026, the Government Accountability Office reported that the route changes near Reagan National mean "some new areas will experience noise impacts." It also found that military operators had not carried out the continuous community outreach that the Defense Department's own Operational Noise Program requires.

Congress has acted, but without settling the question. The ROTOR Act, S. 2503, failed in the House on February 24, 2026, by a vote of 264 to 133 under a two-thirds threshold. The ALERT Act, H.R. 7613, passed the House on April 14, 2026, and was referred to the Senate. Section 373 of the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act, now Public Law 119-60, restricts Defense Department manned-rotorcraft training in the D.C. special flight rules area unless the aircraft provide compatible proximity warnings to commercial aircraft. Waivers are allowed subject to senior approval.

Why the date of your homework matters

Taken together, a buyer who researches military operational noise for a specific Arlington address in late 2026 is looking at a permanent but interim rule, a heliport that is suspended for now, recommendations for annual route review, and a Senate bill still in committee. A buyer who did the same check in 2024 would have found a different helicopter map, with a zone reaching to Fort Myer. Item 19 gives no radius, and the record shows why one would not stay accurate for long.

Special events add another layer. On June 11, 2026, ARLnow reported that a dozen helicopters flew down the Rosslyn–Ballston corridor. ARLnow later reported that residents could expect more military flyovers and noise from June 24 through July 10 for America's 250th anniversary events. It also covered overnight NORAD exercises from June 30 through July 2, between midnight and 5:30 a.m., with aircraft possibly as low as 1,000 feet. A showing in October will not reproduce any of that.

Where the public data actually lives

Arlington County's Airport Noise page says the County has no authority to regulate aircraft operations at DCA. It directs helicopter noise complaints to the FAA Aviation Noise Ombudsman and links to the airport's resources. Those resources serve the item 18 side of the form more directly than item 19, and they are the closest public tools available.

1. MWAA WebTrak can show near-real-time flight activity, according to the airports authority's annual noise report. The County page links to it along with MWAA's form for filing noise complaints.
2. The DCA noise monitoring system includes 15 monitors, with Arlington locations at Chain Bridge, Rosslyn, and Dumbarton. The airports authority says the readings track historical trends and are not used for regulation or enforcement.
3. MWAA's 2024 annual noise report includes typical daily flight-track maps. It covers 2024, before the October 2025 chart changes.
4. The Virginia Department of Aviation's noise contour page is the resource item 18 names. The department notes that not every airport has a map posted.

None of these is a parcel-level map of military operational noise. The ceremonial calendars from Joint Base Myer–Henderson Hall and Arlington National Cemetery fill in part of the picture. The FAA's DCA rulemaking docket covers the rest.

Short answers to the questions that come up

Does item 19 require an Arlington seller to describe cannon salutes or helicopter traffic? The item states that the owner makes no representation about proximity to a military ground installation or its effects, and it advises purchasers to do their own due diligence.

Is the Pentagon heliport operating again? The FAA's March 18, 2026, chronology still lists heliport takeoffs as discontinued pending updated procedures.

Is the helicopter route map final? The January 23, 2026, rule is an interim final rule. The FAA said it would consider comments before issuing a final version, and the NTSB has recommended annual route reviews.

If you are under contract in Arlington, or getting ready to list, and want the public flight data, ceremony calendars, and FAA rule history for a particular address gathered in one place before your due diligence deadline, The DC Team at TTR Sotheby's International Realty can pull those records together with you and coordinate with your attorney or settlement agent on anything legal. Schedule a Consultation.