A recorded 2016 City of Arvada development agreement required Candelas homebuilders to provide homebuyers with a Contiguous Area Report discussing the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility immediately north of the community. Buyers were required to sign the report, and signed copies were to be recorded. The documents also raise another question: what happens to that disclosure when a home becomes a rental?

Decades before homes were built at Candelas, members of the Church-McKay family sued over radioactive contamination of property near Rocky Flats and its effect on land use and value. Years later, Charles Church McKay became a developer of Candelas. The documented history connects Rocky Flats contamination, litigation and modern development in ways many current residents may never have heard.