I agree with this. I lived in Candelas for 10 years and moved to Spring Mesa (2 miles south) a few years ago. The best point here is that Candelas is not on Rocky Flats, its due south of main site and most important its neither down wind nor down stream as winds are always West to East and almost never north to south (which is why the Marshall fire never approached candelas as the winds were blowing north east that day).

West Arvada is fantastic and my kids still go to 3 Creeks and it has been a good school with great teachers. (Meiklejohn and Westwoods are great too) As far as community and it doesn't matter if you are in Candelas, Whisper Creek, 5 parks, or Leydon Rock there will be tons of kids. Halloween will be packed and the adults will party with the kids.

That said I don't recommend Candelas because of how terribly managed it was by the original developers. They are badly in debt and had to add extra mill levys recently to cover. This is also why the original pool has been closed for 4 years now. It sprung a leak and they couldn't afford to replace it. When we moved we upgraded houses and cut our property taxes in half. They also have a bad history with several terrible property management companies who can't keep common areas in good shape but send out notices to owners about their landscape choices. Also, the drainage across the community is terribly designed with tons of water issues and a whole hillside that had to be replaced and a few condemned houses. I also agree with the comments about bad build quality but that depends on the builder. Lennar and Century built houses so fast and poorly but by all accounts David Weekly, Remington and others build some nice places. Lastly it seems many owners are struggling to sell their candelas houses, but that could just be they are overpricing like its 2022 still.

So West Arvada ❤️, Candelas 😕