// ON THE RECORD
Connect East Development
Halifax real estate development company that buys, builds, and holds new multi-unit residential rental properties in the Halifax area, primarily on the Halifax Peninsula and in Fairview and Timberlea. Founded during the pandemic with a buy-build-rent-and-hold model funded by out-of-province (Toronto) backers and built with local trades.
📍 Halifax, Nova Scotia, CanadaEst. 2020✓ 100% first-party verified
// CLIPS FROM Connect East Development
“you never know you can give a guy half a million dollars and you never know what its vices are”
“I knew that the secondary unit stuff was about to come out”
“the barrier-free unit oh you gotta love those”
“the building we had designed was around 35 million dollars and there is no way we are coming out”
“Andre makes the joke that he wants to skip concrete on the big one and go straight to steel”
“when I got into business with Andre I said the most important thing is trust”
“when we did our eight unit I was in front of city council the neighbors talked”
“in Toronto it's very much oh what are you doing who are you okay we're not interested”
“one thing is the trees too that was a big shocker to me”
// LESSONS FROM Connect East Development
Never pay a GC in full before completion — weekly billing without holdbacks is how contractors walk off jobs with your money.
Under Part 9 of the building code (under eight units, within height/square-footage limits), owner-builders can do most of their own permitting, plumbing, and some electrical rough-in without a licensed contractor.
Teaching yourself AutoCAD and doing floor-plan layouts in-house dramatically cuts architect fees and speeds turnaround — the architect just confirms and stamps.
Building a permanent in-house crew and staying aggressive on land acquisition keeps the crew busy year-round; stopping construction to wait for permits means losing the team.
The Halifax HRM neighbour-appeal process adds three or more months of delay for as-of-right projects, and objections are almost always dismissed — factor this timeline into pro formas and use it to secure adjacent lots.
Structural steel can be 20 percent cheaper than concrete for mid-rise buildings and bypasses the two-to-three-year backlog for concrete envelope contractors in Halifax — worth designing for as you scale past six storeys.
// ON THE RECORD WITH
Kulak Construction Ltd.
Works with
Oliver Gorski (Connect East) and Andre Kulakevich (Kulak Construction) are co-venture partners on all Halifax Peninsula development projects
Premier Mortgages
Backed by
Scott Bentley and Igor Gashellen at Premier Mortgages have brokered all construction loans and mortgages since the partnership began
Troy (architect)
Works with
Preferred architect for IFC sets and permit packages; chosen for speed and price efficiency over larger firms
Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM)
At odds with
Repeated permitting friction: neighbour appeals, tree department delays, floor-count disputes, barrier-free requirements — operational adversary though relationship with one HRM manager improved
Halifax Water
Regulated by
Halifax Water connection fees tripled ($2k to $7k per unit) — a material cost-escalation risk for multi-unit projects
// SELECTED PROJECTS
Five-storey, eight-unit apartment building (no parking), Halifax Peninsula North
Status unconfirmedDeveloper
Connect East obtained a demolition permit for an existing house in August 2022 and applied for site-plan approval for a five-storey, eight-unit apartment building with no parking. Neighbours appealed; Halifax councillors unanimously denied the appeal in October 2022, allowing the development to proceed. Gorski said the appeal delay forced the company to lay off most of its workers and caused its Toronto investors to question investing in Halifax. Completion/construction status as of 2026 is NOT publicly confirmed — exact street address and final outcome could not be verified, so status is left 'unknown' rather than 'completed'.
// KEY PEOPLE
// NOTABLE
Connect East was formed in 2020 and co-founded by Oliver Gorski during the pandemic; its business model is to build new multi-unit buildings in attractive locations and rent-and-hold them over time.
SOURCE ▸The company's financial backers are from Toronto, but it uses local labour. Gorski: "All our workers, our trades, everyone is all local. The only thing that's coming from outside the province is the money to buy the land."
SOURCE ▸Per the company's own description, Connect East has bought, sold, and constructed multi-unit properties across Halifax — specifically on the Peninsula and in Fairview and Timberlea — and works with Kulak Construction Ltd. (owner Andrey Kulakevich) as its builder.
SOURCE ▸Building like this in Atlantic Canada?
Be a guest ▸