Andre Kulakevich and Oliver Gorski — a Ukrainian-born software engineer and a Navy veteran — lost their first contractor to a tools-stolen story and their full project payment. Their answer was to bring everything in-house: crew, AutoCAD, plumbing, permits. Now they're aiming at 200 units on the Halifax Peninsula.
The first general contractor demanded weekly payments against a split contract. Week by week the money went out. Then the work stopped. According to Andre Kulakevich, who tells the story in full on the Atlantic Construction Podcast, the GC called one morning to report that all his tools had been stolen — and was never heard from on the project again. As Andre tells it, "the full contract was paid out but he wasn't done... next day he calls me, all his tools are gone"
That story is how Kulak Construction Ltd. began. Not as a plan, but as a conclusion: if you cannot trust a GC to finish the job, you have to do the job yourself.
And that is exactly what they did. Today, Kulak Construction and its development partner Connect East Developments operate a vertically integrated model — one in-house crew handles demolition, foundation, framing, plumbing, electrical rough-in, finishing, and landscaping. Andre taught himself AutoCAD to produce permit drawings. Oliver Gorski, a first-generation Polish-Canadian and Navy veteran, handles the development side. They are targeting 30 to 100 unit wood-frame and steel-structure buildings across Halifax Peninsula corridor lots over the next two years.
This is Episode 39 of the Atlantic Construction Podcast — almost ninety minutes of on-the-record construction economics from two people who have earned the right to explain exactly how Halifax development works from the inside.
What the bad GC story actually teaches
Every developer in Atlantic Canada has a contractor horror story. Most of them end in a lawsuit, or a lien, or just a slow fade where the work never quite finishes. What makes the Kulakevich version instructive is the contract structure that made it possible.
The GC was paid weekly against a split contract with no holdback. That means by the time the work stopped, the money was already gone — not half gone, fully gone. The lesson Andre drew was absolute: he resolved never to hire a GC again and built an in-house crew instead.
That resolution has a real cost. Assembling and keeping a crew means staying aggressive on land acquisition whether you want to or not. Andre is direct about this: "I prefer not to cut it back... that's why we've been pretty aggressive with purchasing projects" If the crew has no work, you lose the crew. The pipeline has to stay full to justify the fixed cost of keeping people on.
For a small developer, this is a genuine trade-off. But the upside is real: you control the schedule, the quality, and the budget variance. You are not waiting on a GC's other jobs.
The code knowledge that cuts your architect bill
The in-house model only works if you understand the regulations at the same depth as a professional. Andre has done that work — and it shows in how he talks about the building code.
Under Part 9 of the building code, owner-builders of smaller residential projects can perform much of the work without a licensed contractor. As Andre explains it, "you fall under part nine you're allowed to do a lot of yourself, uh same goes with plumbing right now I'm doing it myself" That means plumbing rough-in done in-house under the owner-builder exemption — a real cost removal on a four-to-six-unit project.
The AutoCAD piece is similar. Andre taught himself the software: "the more work I do up front if I can do design the floor plans... I've learned AutoCAD myself" What this means in practice is that by the time drawings go to the architect for review and stamp, most of the design work is already done. The architect's fee compresses to a review and a signature rather than a full engagement.
His software background — he graduated in computer science and worked in tech before development — makes command-line AutoCAD feel natural in a way it might not for someone coming from the trades. That is one of the episode's blunter arguments: research skill and internet literacy can substitute for trade experience faster than most tradespeople expect. "in the 21st century you can pretty much learn everything off YouTube, construction included"
The floor-count game and other permit strategy
If you build in Halifax and have not read Part 9 closely, you are leaving money on the table — or paying for sprinklers you could have avoided.
The building code defines the first floor of a building as a floor whose finished elevation sits no more than two metres above average ground level. If your underground parking garage stays within that threshold, it does not count as a storey. As Andre describes it: "definition of a first floor is no more than two metres above ground... lift the soil up, put a retaining wall, now it's a three-storey building" A four-storey classification triggers fire-suppression requirements. Three does not. The difference is a retaining wall and some grading work.
Timing matters as much as geometry. Andre built his first new-construction project — a triplex on Kencrest Avenue in the North End — as a duplex-plus-storage while secondary-suite legislation was still pending. He anticipated the rule change: "I knew it was coming out... the moment it came out, submission form, amendment of the building" Nova Scotia council approved the secondary and backyard suite rules in September 2020; they came into force in November 2020. If you had framed to spec and submitted an amendment the day the rules changed, you converted storage to a legal unit at zero additional construction cost.
The barrier-free unit requirement is another place where knowing the code exactly changes the math. You have two compliant paths: make all units convertible, or designate one unit as fully wheelchair-accessible. Developers who choose the latter often build to the full standard for the permit, then reconfigure after final inspection. The reason is direct: "as soon as the permits approved and finalized they unequip it because no one's going to pay rent... it takes a lot of space"
What HRM's appeals process actually costs you
Halifax's neighbour-appeal mechanism is a known delay source, but the episode puts a specific price on it.
On a project at 6459 Bayers Road — a five-storey, eight-unit building under Centre Plan corridor zoning — neighbours hired an architect to object to lighting and balcony placement. The appeal went to council. The wait was three months. Then HRM dismissed every objection on the day of the hearing: "three months to get to the actual council... at the end of the day HRM dismissed the whole thing"
The Halifax Examiner reported on that hearing in October 2022, confirming that Halifax councillors threw out the neighbours' appeal and noting that Oliver Gorski stated at the hearing that the appeal had forced the company to lay off most of its workers while waiting.
Three months of involuntary standstill is a pro forma line item. Budget it on any Halifax project that might attract a neighbour challenge, and consider using the wait period to assemble adjacent lots — your competitor cannot move while you are both waiting for the same council date.
Tree replacement adds a separate budget exposure. Mature trees on city property adjacent to a building site can carry replacement levies up to $50,000 per tree. That is not a rounding error. And according to Andre, the levy "blocked the entire permit until we came out with the plan" Get a tree survey and a replanting plan into your permit package before the application goes in.
Halifax Water connection fees are a third escalating cost. The Regional Development Charge for a new unit ran roughly $2,000 when Kulak Construction first applied. By the time of this episode it had risen to around $7,000 — and current published Halifax Water rates confirm ongoing escalation. "about seven thousand... what was it when we first applied, about two... it tripled just in the last three four years" If your pro forma was built on older fee assumptions, re-run it.
Corridor zoning: where to buy in Halifax right now
Halifax's Centre Plan corridor designation is the single most important zoning classification for a small-to-mid developer on the peninsula. Corridor lots — generally on major bus routes — allow heights up to 20 metres with no parking requirement. As Andre explains: "Corridor is basically where the buses usually run... zoned for up to about 20 metres... no parking requirements"
Eliminating the parking requirement is not cosmetic. Underground parking on a small lot in Halifax adds meaningful cost and potentially triggers the floor-count classification issue discussed above. If you can acquire a corridor lot and build six storeys of residential without a parking podium, the unit economics change substantially.
Bears Road, where Andre and Oliver assembled six lots early in their partnership, was rezoned to corridor after they sold the parcel to developer Michael Allen. An 80-unit building is now planned on that same land. They sold because financing ran thin on the assembly — their conclusion at the time was that "we would be making more money walking away now than after finishing the building... money talks" Knowing when an assembly has outgrown your balance sheet, and selling rather than holding at rising rates, is its own discipline.
The businesses behind the model
Kulak Construction Ltd. is the construction arm of this operation — a vertically integrated builder of multi-unit residential new construction in Halifax Regional Municipality. They handle everything in-house from foundation through landscaping, building exclusively for their own portfolio rather than contracting out. Their work and project pipeline are at kulak.ca.
Connect East Development is the holding and development entity — a buy-build-hold operation focused on the Halifax Peninsula, Fairview, and Timberlea. Their current activity is on Instagram at @connecteastdevelopment.
The episode is also presented with support from Payzant Building Products — a family-owned Atlantic Canada building materials and home improvement retailer operating under the Home Hardware Building Centre banner, with locations across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick — and Procore Technologies, the cloud construction-management software platform.
The partnership that started at a meetup
Andre and Oliver met at a monthly Halifax real estate investor group organized by realtor Nick Harvey-Pearson — a meetup Andre had been attending since starting in real estate in 2017. Oliver had come to Halifax from Toronto after a Navy career and was looking for the right partner. His read on Andre was fast: "I looked at him and I said... this guy is something... I messaged him and said maybe we could go for coffee"
That is a useful structural note for anyone building in a secondary Canadian market. Halifax's development community is small and more open than Toronto's — developers share site access and business models in ways that would be unusual in a larger market. Michael Allen, who bought the Bears Road parcel, has since opened his projects and his thinking to the pair as a mentor. That kind of proximity to people doing bigger work is one of the structural advantages Halifax offers to someone at the beginning of a development career, if they show up to the right room and follow up when it matters.
The two-year plan is 12 to 30 units on Windsor Street as the first step up to mid-scale, then 30 to 60-plus units across corridor lots with the in-house crew intact. The bet is that the crew they built from a bad GC story is the durable competitive advantage. So far, the math seems to agree.
Guests: Andre Kulakevich, Kulak Construction Ltd. and Oliver Gorski, Connect East Development. Episode 39 of the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Watch the full episode. Also featured: Payzant Building Products and Procore Technologies. Receipt sources: Halifax secondary-suite rules, The Coast; Halifax Water Regional Development Charge; Corridor zoning, HRM Centre Plan; Bayers Road appeal, Halifax Examiner.