How Two Halifax Developers Do Their Own Permits, Plumbing, and AutoCAD — In-House Build Model Explained (Connect East & Kulak Construction)

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0:41Welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Very excited to have with us today Oliver Gorski and Andre Kulakevich — Connect East Development and Kulak Construction Ltd. Thanks for being here, guys. Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you here. Yeah, really looking forward to talking about your plans and some of the approvals that you have. I know you've got lots of projects planned for the next couple of years — maybe a couple hundred units in multi-res throughout the peninsula and the in-house

1:14construction team from Ukraine, as you are. Yeah, well, maybe we can start with a little bit of a background. I'll start with you, Andre. I know you were born in Ukraine and lived in Israel — born in Ukraine, here since '08, here in Halifax, yes, and in Israel since '96, so 12 years in Israel, then 14 years in Halifax specifically, so moved directly here and stayed there. Even though it was pretty rough the first year or two, really considering

1:46moving out of here, because we moved right — back then it was 2008, right in that recession with the US, and everything slowed down. Myself as a teenager when we moved here, I couldn't even find a job, a part-time job or anything. It was impossible even to get into, you know, a Superstore, Loblaws kind of thing. Interesting times. Yeah. After that I finished university here, finished high school here. I have a bachelor's in computer science — software engineer. Yeah.

2:19I've always looked for kind of a way out of the rat race kind of thing. And I was looking to be financially independent. And when I looked at software, while it's possible, the risks are quite high and before you could turn and get any profits out of it — any significant amount of money — it could be years of scrapping by. So I went for something more proven, a proven model with real estate, and started investing. I started

2:51investing in it. I wasn't planning to go full time into it. I wanted to, over a decade or so, kind of build up. And so one of those properties that you started investing in — is that the one that recently finished, your first new build? That was by no means... I started in 2017. That same year it was a rundown duplex in Spryfield, right? So you started with doing a lot of retrofits, renovations. Yeah. It's tough — the first one I tried to

3:21not go crazy. It was a cosmetic renovation for the most part — upgrading everything, painting, new trims, new windows, kind of that kind of thing, but nothing major structural or anything to that extent. And it was funny enough that the moment I bought that property I was laid off of my job. So I decided to just go start working on it myself while I applied for jobs, because there's no point in sitting at home paying someone to do it

3:54when I have the time, basically. And that kind of started stretching a bit too far — ended up being close to about six months of me working on it. Then again, first time doing a lot of that stuff, researching the whole thing. I find that that's one of the biggest skills I actually acquired from university — and then the software skills themselves — building the ability to research. Yeah, the ability to really dig down into the internet and find exactly what you need and gather enough information to do what you

4:24want. And that helps you a lot with the permitting process, with everything — at this point with everything, with the permits, with the architecture. So I do a lot of the layouts and designs myself and then I get that confirmed with the architect and make sure they haven't missed anything, and we go back and forth. Squeezing the orange, yeah — you know that. Yeah, we do most of the permitting in-house besides the obvious things, like we can't do the

4:54— and even then, which is like most people, mechanical and electrical engineering — it's got to go to consultants. Exactly. But when it comes to the residential, there's up to a certain level you're actually allowed to do most of it yourself, right? To a certain size project. Yeah, exactly. And most of the projects we're doing right now are under eight units — it's based on the height, based on the square footage, really. The structures. Yeah. That's what they call Part 9 of the

5:21building code. You fall under that, you're allowed to do a lot yourself. Same goes with plumbing — right now I'm doing the plumbing in-house, even though you're talking about needing a license for plumbing, a license for electrical — it depends on what you're doing. If you do it for yourself and you don't go advertise "I'm doing plumbing for other people," you're not actually going against it — you're allowed to do it yourself. The city inspects it and passes it, and

5:46everything is fine. Electrical, on the other hand, requires a certified electrician to even open the permit, and none of them will let you do the work yourself — they wouldn't sign off. And no tradesperson wants to take the liability. But we do, for example, help our electrician — we drill holes for him, we install boxes for him, stuff that wouldn't require an actual licensed electrician. Yeah, so we're not wiring any of it, but we are helping him just

6:11putting in boxes, the rough-in. Yeah, exactly. What about yourself, Oliver — just a little bit about your journey? Came to Halifax in 2017? Military? Yeah. So I — this is all new. Toronto before that? Yeah, I lived in Toronto my entire life. My parents originally immigrated from Poland, so I'm first generation here, in the '80s. So we have Ukraine and Poland. Yeah, Eastern Europe. That's awesome. One of our mortgage brokers is also Ukrainian, so that's — he made the joke that he liked to call us the

6:41Eastern European team. I've been out watching a lot of the World Cup games with my friends from Brazil here in the city. I've been meeting a lot of people from Ukraine here. And it's just so much more of a diverse city. Toronto's actually got — I believe, don't quote me on this — but the largest Ukrainian population outside of Ukraine itself. Wow. Yeah, it's a very big population. That's why my parents from Poland went to Toronto, because they felt more at home. There's a big

7:07population there. Toronto in general is, you know, much more culturally diverse — they have like Little Italy, Little Portugal, Chinatown, all these places. So you kind of immigrate from another country and it's like you never left home. You find your little embassy, exactly. Plus, you know, there's like five, six million people there, right? So anyone coming from a big city like maybe Hong Kong or something is going to feel like, okay, this is not really a downgrade.

7:34So, yeah — I joined the military. I finished university, didn't really do... was kind of floating around, decided that maybe I'd do some military service. My dad was in the military — it was mandatory in Poland during the Communist time to join, and he told me, just try it out. So I did that, realized that I didn't really like it — it's not for me. So how long did that take? Four years. So the original contract when you join the military

8:03is four years. What did you like about it? I liked the structure. I always like to have a structured environment. I mean, showing up to work and having a whole day structured was okay, but the actual work — I don't want to bash the Navy, but they sent me to do a bunch of advanced math and physics and electronics and I ended up moving boxes a lot of the day. So it kind of — you know, I didn't

8:30see the training. And I was told that the training comes later in the career, but I'm kind of impatient and I didn't want to wait. So — you're an entrepreneur, exactly. So what I did is — before the pandemic they had real estate meetups where you would come in and people would talk about real estate. There's one hosted by a realtor, Nick Harvey, I believe his name was. Yeah, Nick. He had one of them — meet

9:00ups. Yeah, there's the website meetup.com, right? You can create groups and set up meetups. It's once a month — unfortunately it's not as active, not that consistent. Once a week would be a lot. Yeah. I would actually love going to it because you'd find some like-minded people. And that's really cool to talk about. But it's interesting how that sparked your transition out of the Navy. Yeah, and the timing too —

9:30right before this place went crazy. So it was kind of like maybe a signal from above, as they call it. So I went to the meetup and people were talking about how they're buying and renting homes and duplexes and I was like, okay, well that's great. And then Andre stood up and he started talking and I'm like, okay, this guy sounds a little bit more — you know, he's close to my age. Also, that's how you both met? That's

9:57exactly where we both met. And close to my age — he really knows his stuff. Like, I can just — I don't know, I don't want to say I have a sixth sense, but when it came to him I looked at him and said — don't stroke his ego, exactly, when he walked in here — "this guy, there's something about this guy." So I messaged him and I said, "Hey look, you know, I'm looking to get into

10:22this stuff too" and I thought maybe we might be able to go for coffee and talk about our ideas and where we want to go with this. The power of networking — it's super underestimated. And they always say you're one phone call away from your biggest dream, or your biggest shot. One coffee away. One coffee — that happens totally. Exactly. So Andre was aggressive — and not in a bad way — but

10:49he said, "Okay, if you're serious, let's start bidding right now on property." So he went — what was that first property? We went to the one in Fairview, remember? We put a bid. Yeah, the one on the same street as Frederick but at the very bottom of the street — remember we went into that one with Nick? It was completely run down. At the beginning especially there were so many properties we went through. Are you looking for that combination of a run-down-enough house, big enough renovation, because we

11:15didn't want to do a bunch of additions or extensions — you want an existing house that had sound enough square footage to actually convert to a multi-unit without an additional element. Exactly. I made the running joke that if it smells like piss, it's going to be good. Perfect — perfect run-down. So yeah, I think we bid on what, two or three homes before we got our first two? We bid on Robie — didn't get that. We

11:41bid on the one in Fairview, didn't get it. The one on Summit Street — remember we were gonna lift the house, add a whole thing? And someone actually did do that, so we weren't too far off. It was another worn-down place on Summit Street — they lifted the home and put a new foundation underneath it. Yeah, and they added a floor, so it turned into like a three-unit or something like that. But it was total garbage inside — it was

12:03perfect. So that — lots of piss. It was also more my style to kind of gut it all the way down and make sure it's new plumbing, new electrical, and everything. We weren't doing the so-called lipstick on a pig kind of thing. That's fine, but that's a tough arena at the beginning. So you guys eventually said okay, enough of the retrofits, enough of the renos? Not even that — like just going back to

12:31the buying of properties — it's such a difference now. Like before, when we started... oh my God. The first couple of properties were like, okay, let's just say theoretically the price was $250k. We offer $210k, let's see what happens. Now, $50k over is like the minimum. Oh my God — that's just in three years. Exactly, right? Such a changing environment. So anyway, continuing on — we eventually stumbled on two

13:02properties on Bears Road that were sitting on the market for a long time. We bid on those and we won both. So those two became our first two duplexes. They were single-family homes — well, no, one was a duplex but it wasn't finished. It had issues with the actual duplex — semi, it was like a duplex, legally it was a duplex already. It had some violations for fire and safety, like getting in and out of the basement — for example, you could hit your head right against a

13:35beam and other stuff like that. So they had violations and they'd done some other stuff. So they had the cease and desist kind of thing from the city at that point as well. Half the house was already in a mess, so they couldn't sell it properly. We had to buy that one cash because of that. The bank wouldn't touch it. So Andre hired a bunch of guys, and that was about the time you left your job at CGI, right?

14:03When you were working on that house? That's skipping a couple of steps. So we actually bought those a lot earlier than you remember — we bought them at the end of 2018, early 2019. Okay. So these projects — they should be six, eight months, but you know when you're trying to do it yourself and you're new it turns into more. And even then you're skipping the fact that we had a general contractor. So the back end — right, then I was still doing no construction, I was just working my full-time job as a

14:28software engineer. So who was doing your contracting for it? In the beginning we had basically hired general contractors. I went through a couple — just smaller residential GCs. Yeah, just guys through connections, guys from the sort of free post — I'm looking for someone, you know, that kind of thing. And you decided to bring that in-house — was it a bad experience? It was a very bad experience. He was paid the full amount. So back then, you know, the information

14:59— you could find a lot that said, you know, a third upfront, a third once half the work is done, and a third at the end. We did the first third, I found, and then he started demanding every week some pay, because he was like, "I'm broke, I need to pay my bills," and other stuff. "You know, I worked the full week, can you pay me for the week?" That kind of thing. It quickly got to the point where

15:22the full contract was paid out but he wasn't done. And again we're not unreasonable — I said, "Okay, let's structure something else where we can..." How did that get paid out if he really wasn't done? Like, was he progress billing or what? He was billing based on the week — like, "I worked the week, pay me for the week" kind of thing. Moreover, like in general labor, no holdbacks in that arena, right? Yeah. And we were young — you kind of

15:46already put that much money into it — if you stop paying right now he could just walk away, and that's what ended up happening. Either way, you were trying to be reciprocal, and when you're young as well you're like, "Oh, I hear about these horror stories but not me." Exactly — we're none of us the exception. And then we all learned that mistake at the beginning. You've already put so much money into it — a third of the whole

16:11contract. And those are big contracts — one was forty thousand, one sixty thousand, each renovation needed significant work. And he got about a third of each one upfront. He said "I need to buy tools" — they always have a story. "All my tools got stolen, I need to buy a bunch of new tools, I need to pay the guys who work for me every week," and everything else. And then yeah, you end up — and of course at the

16:39end of the day, once the — the day off I sent him a message, "You know the contract is done, we need to figure out how you're going to continue working here. The funds are — we'll figure something else out, the way we structure it or whatever." The next day he calls me: "Did you leave the door open? What's going on? I'm not sure." I showed up there and all his tools are gone. He says, "The tools got stolen, I can't work anymore."

17:08And all the money we paid him — it's all gone.

17:13I've heard that story so many times. So that's exactly when I said, "Okay, I'm not willing to hire another guy." Because that's the thing — he was the most reasonable guy in terms of price, in terms of what I could see. And was anyone else literally better on work quality as well? No, no. Well, he finished one property for me before, and even then, stretching it out between the things he did finish — he did finish a project for me before.

17:40A little over budget but still reasonable. It was finished and he did the whole work in the house. We passed the inspections, everything was okay in that sense. But here he — probably, again, I don't think it was out of malice, kind of trying to — he wasn't malicious, he was just poor with money. Very poor with his money. Because a lot of times with these smaller contractors, you know, they're wearing all the hats

18:05and running their business, and really it should be one or the other. I've heard from many people — and I know there are a couple of people that got burned on the bigger side — and they say, "You never know. You can give a guy half a million dollars and you never know what his vices are when he goes home." A gambling problem — he could be deliberately malicious or impulsive, exactly. He just has issues. Exactly, right? We all do. It just scales with money —

18:30if you're small and then you get big, those problems just get bigger. Yeah, money is always a sign of someone's character pretty quickly. And that's a good point, just on that — because I always say, when I got into business with Andre, that the most important thing — because we've handed each other so much money — is trust. Trust is the most important thing. You can have guys that make a ton of money

18:56together, and as soon as the trust is shattered it's never the same. So I always say that's the hardest attribute in business to find in a business partner — 100% trust. Whenever you've been through places where trust has been broken, it's never the same. But you appreciate that person so much if you do have that level of trust, and you want to work on that relationship so much — just keep it working, keep it good, keep

19:23it where it's at, because it's everything. The space between you is everything. You know the old Warren Buffett quote — it takes 20 seconds to destroy your reputation and 20 years to build it. Kind of thing. Yeah, that's what I look at. We've been through so much stuff in the last couple of years, even though we haven't been in business that long — it just hardens your experience together, and it means you're just way stronger. Yeah, super strong.

19:48It's just like being in the trenches, man. Those are your brothers, exactly. We all need brotherhood — it's a big part of life, you know. So yeah — going to the Bears Road stuff, right? That's where we got our first big break — those two properties. The city's been working on the Centre Plan. I can't remember if it was during when we bought it or directly after, but they were obviously rezoning the whole... I believe they released it — what date

20:17was this? Like, what point could you say it was your big break? We sold last May — six lots, right? So you sold the lots? And did you sell them because you couldn't get permits approved? We were not the building — the building we had designed was around $35 million, and there is no way we were coming out like — I went to Toronto, because I have family there and friends, and they

20:42said they were going to — originally I went at Christmas and they said they're going to buy the land for us and we're going to slowly — and that's where I presented that picture I have of those three different developments. So I was like, "We're going to phase it — we're going to do this building, the eight units, the 24-unit, and then 36," and they were even named after each of the investors. Your family friends. Very close friends. And it was great —

21:06they wanted to do it, and then of course there's always a snag. The lawyer who is entrusted with their trust fund is like, "Hold on — these guys haven't even built anything and you want us to start dumping millions of dollars?" So was it because you didn't have a track record? Yeah, we didn't. Everyone told me I was — my head was in the clouds at the time. "I've got this big building, this and that" —

21:31Was it — looking back — an attempt to make too big of a leap? Too big of a leap. In reality, it also became a blessing in disguise. That lawyer said no way. He's a smart guy. Saved us quite a lot of headaches. And eventually we had problems within the business and we had to — but there's nothing stopping you from

21:57reapproaching them. Always two years down the road, exactly, with a way stronger foot, a much bigger team, and a much more experienced team. So we didn't get the money from Toronto. And this is where I'm going to give my first shout-out, because Scott Bentley here is a local broker — greatest guy, he's been helping us since the beginning. Who's he with? Premier Mortgages. And his partner Igor Gashellan. They've been great to us, they've been helping us right from the beginning and to

22:27this day. Why do you think that is? We went to them originally for mortgages when we first started buying properties, and over time — mortgages for land and buildings, land and construction loans and stuff like that. Maybe they got a good impression of us. I don't know, you'd have to ask him. But he's the best broker here by far — I'll never go anywhere else. He helps on all your projects, exactly. Yes. And then so he

22:55helped us acquire those other few lots and actually made the suggestion — which Andre originally suggested — of consolidating all six into one big lot and doing one big project instead of doing those three different ones. It's a waste, right? When you have 20 metres allowed and here we're building an eight-unit tiny little thing. So we sold that as one lot, one big parcel. And you redid the geo map? No, no, no, no, no — we did the architectural. We worked with

23:26Troy and got the building that could be built there. Because Troy's got architecture? Yeah, this is the architect that you like to work with. Yes. What is it about him? Efficient timing, efficient price, common sense. A lot of the time when we first went to other firms, it was way more expensive and the timeline was almost twice as much just to have that initial IFC set. Well, he also — he wanted to do some of the stuff that we're doing with

23:54the permit, like organizing engineers and stuff, and I said, "I'm not paying for that because I can do that." So we went with Troy. I forget — was it a recommendation or something about Troy? I just called around, I can't remember. Mostly called around. Yeah, and we maybe met with a couple of them, and again all of them were saying, "Until we get to you it's going to be a couple of months, until we finish your project it's going to be another month

24:16or two." The prices are triple or quadruple for what we're talking with Scott, even, because he works with a buddy hourly basically. So the more work I do upfront — if I can do the design, the floor plans — and are you using CAD and Revit yourself to do this? I have learned AutoCAD myself. Yeah. Again, part of the research, as I mentioned before. And using so many software development tools that at this point — finding that AutoCAD was

24:44built for programmers. The way it works — commands and everything else — I'm so used to the command line and running stuff with commands, so shorthand, send commands to it, drag it, drop it. Basically you're programming with it. Yeah. So that was the first piece of land that you sold? That was the first — no, it wasn't. It was the first big piece of land, right? We bought another — how many acres was it? It was 24,000 square feet. So I don't know, that's not how it was happening but

25:12on the peninsula that's quite a bit of land. Yeah. It accommodated around 80 to 100 — I don't even know that I've seen anything like that show up, literally on the — there was one on Gottingen. So the Urban Capital guys from Toronto, they're doing the condos here, right? They just bought another big chunk of land on Gottingen. Okay. So then that was from the Nova Scotia affordability program? Yes, they were going to build some affordable houses on Gottingen and couldn't do it, so they

25:41bought it from them. So there's going to be more condos on Gottingen, right? Did you actually hit the market? It was private. That's what I'm saying — that's the first time I've seen one, especially of that size, that went on the market. So when did you build your first new build? The first one would be the one with... yeah. And that was an eight-unit? A three-unit. Unfortunately you're not allowed to build anything more. And even

26:13then you were only allowed to build duplexes there. So I knew that the secondary suite stuff was about to come out — backyard suites. Yeah, backyard suites and secondary units, right? They have the option of either putting something in the back or adding something to your building. And luckily enough it fell under duplexes as well, so a duplex is allowed to have a secondary, third unit. I knew it was coming out, but we started before it came out, so

26:43I had to tell HRM that this was just storage — a whole floor of just storage. They made me swear by it, you know, and everything else, that this is not going to be an illegal unit or anything like that, a third unit. So a whole floor — of three floors — the whole thing is your storage. It has a bunch of windows and patio doors and other stuff, but it's also — who's gonna play the game, right? You

27:05got to play this. But it wasn't storage in the end? No. I think the inspectors knew what was going on and kind of — okay, yes and no. But basically they made me swear it's not going to be a unit, and I told them it's not going to be a unit until it's legal to be a unit. Because we did the permits for that in, I believe, June–July of 2020. And the secondary suite stuff came out in

27:34November, also of that year. Wow. And by that point we had the whole thing framed and everything — all the windows and everything else. And then the moment it came out — submission form, amendment of the building permit — it becomes a unit. And I knew all the rules for the secondary unit at that point, so it was built to be exactly that: the 80 square metres they require for a secondary unit. So how did that first new build go as far as margins and schedule?

27:59Margins were basically — especially on the construction side, on paper — good. The construction side, yes. And you subbed out nothing — you did everything in-house? The whole thing. Electrical would be the only thing — the only scope subbed out. Yeah, again, because you need the permits for it. Everything else — we excavated ourselves, poured our own things.

28:27And even then most of the people — some of them you knew from Ukraine, or people you know — a couple of them were just posted on Indeed or something. Looking for employees, I got a couple from there. Then part of the crew was subcontracted through someone we knew — he came with his own people. He used to do drywall before but he wanted to get into more general construction. So I ended up helping him and training him

28:57in framing and other stuff as well. And it's not like I've done all that stuff for years — I'm just good enough at research and consuming content to the point where I have a great memory. So I remember every single detail that needs to be done and checked. You remember what you told me, Andre — in the 21st century you can pretty much learn everything off YouTube, construction included. So yeah, this is true. Basically, anything that you don't need an actual certificate out of

29:28university or college, you could learn it and do it. It depends on your skills, of course, and how quickly and how well you're going to do it. But with this in-house construction crew, do you keep them busy year-round? At this point — that's why I went full time in 2019. I saw that the contractor we had before, and basically starting from 2017, towards the end of it when I basically had six months of working on

29:58myself — I finally found a new job and I hired a general contractor to finish up the cosmetics, like the flooring, paint, and that kind of thing. I found that I had basically since that point non-stop had someone working for me — about three people. And then you just amp up the crew if you need to, or cut it back if you need to. I prefer not to cut it back, and that's why we've been pretty aggressive with purchasing projects. You're buying a lot of land. So

30:26it's selling some and playing — right now it's just buying land and kind of paving the way for future projects. So when he has his crew and they're done here, it's like, okay, on to the next one. So you have enough land acquired in the peninsula now? Yeah, 100%. A couple hundred units built over the next couple of years. And are you permitted and approved for these? No, not yet. But that's why we always look for as-of-right. Are you breaking ground

30:50in the North End? At that point — we have a permit now, we just finished the permit. We agree you haven't started construction yet? No. And what you're ordering — there's fencing there. Your defense, and the permit's approved? The full construction permit? I drove by that the other day. Yeah, it's just — the permit was a little tricky, there were some things that we missed. What do you have planned there? It's those pictures there — two-three units with underground parking, the whole trip.

31:15Again, the same issue as the secondary unit. So two duplexes with a secondary unit — two of them are going to be two units that are three-bedroom, and then the third one is a bit smaller. I posted it on LinkedIn pretty close to that. So it's going to be a higher-end finish. Underground parking. And then again the back and forth with HRM as well — because we're pushing the limit — it's actually

31:38four floors, right? The first floor is basically underground — underground parking. And then they get into the nitty-gritty of: is it four floors or is it three floors? If it's four floors we need sprinklers, we need this, we need that — you need fire separation. Four floors is the big one. Is it just because it's the fourth floor, because there are more people and more units? No. It seems like it's the height, literally the height. I think it's the height and the footprint of the

32:05whole building that will require sprinklers. I'm not exactly sure. Well, it makes sense if it's the height, because then your egress is going to take longer to get out and everything else. Yeah, so you need sprinklers. And there was talk about, like, you could keep it as four floors but then make the garage a separate entity — you'd have to fully fire-separate everything from the rest of the building. And again, I know the nitty-gritty of the building code and

32:30the HRM rules, so we end up — because you've been studying it? Yes, exactly, researching it. That's why eventually you know it like — I'm on par with our architect at this point. Can it possibly be worked around? Not broken, but if you know the rule... So we end up, they end up classifying it as three floors. The only reason is we had enough ground we could manipulate, to make sure it wouldn't be classified as four floors. Because the definition of a first floor is no more

33:02than two metres above ground, and even then it's the average of the face of it. For example, we have an entrance into the garage from — you know — if that deviates, it's got to be the average. So we had to — the architect drew it in and didn't cover really just the corner of the building with soil in the diagram, and it's like, "Oh, the average is above the two metres, it's a fourth floor." I'm like,

33:28really? Lift the soil up, put a retaining wall — now it's a three-storey building. So these are all wood structures, right? Yes, so far. Well, I mean, I haven't built anything the size of where we're going. No, no. And even then, realistically, you can build up to about six floors with just lumber. Andre makes the joke that he wants to skip concrete on the big one we have planned and go straight to steel — structural steel and a steel-stud, dense-

33:55glass envelope or something. Yeah. That would be less expensive, from my research — yes. Actually, it's about 20 percent cheaper than concrete would be. A lot of structures are concrete on the peninsula. Yeah, I know. And what was that like compared to Toronto? A lot of everything is steel. So in Toronto, steel makes 100% sense when you go over 22 or 25 floors — it becomes very economical. And it's a lot harder to pour a 40- to 54-floor building. There are multiple

34:31things going through that. First off, you need to get the concrete all the way up there. And the second thing is concrete is a lot heavier than steel, so your whole foundation has to be so much deeper, so much stronger, so much more engineered — just from the amount of rebar that goes in, the concrete itself is heavy compared to the steel. The footings probably go 30–40 feet deep. Exactly. So there's a lot more digging, a lot more

34:56concrete poured, a lot more rebar — just the physical work of tying all the rebar. What's the comparison on timeline? Does a structural steel envelope go up faster? I think it does. I've been told — but that's what they're saying. About 20 percent savings, and that was on a six-storey building from the research I came across. They were saying it's going to be about 20 percent less in terms of overall cost. So

35:26you'll try and design your envelopes for future projects above six storeys to be structural steel as opposed to wood. The other thing about concrete here is there's only so many building envelope contractors, and what I've been told is they're so flat out you're looking at two to three years before they even look at you. Yeah. Especially if the projects are not that large — they just don't have time. They've been with other developers here that

35:52have been with them for 10-plus years. "Who are these new guys? Are they even going to pay me?" So that's why getting into steel would be something cool and more time-efficient for us. You mean implementing that operationally into your next projects? Yes, yes. Yeah. Because you have plans for a warehouse and different things in the future. That's the plan — to kind of start pulling in. And that's for steel?

36:20I would love to get into manufacturing — create more jobs here. Would you consider any modular methods of construction? You see that a lot now, like the precast stuff. Well, even like modular as in built off-site and assembled on-site — that is something I was looking into. Especially for that niche of three to 12-storey wood-framed. Yeah, for sure. I've seen a couple of those. And the guys as well, they don't particularly like

36:50being on site in all the weather, building walls that could have been built in a factory, under a roof. But it's quite the process to get to that point, for sure. And time will tell — it could be a long-term plan. But yeah, the funny thing about business when you first get into it is you're gung-ho: "This is how it's going to work, we're gonna be quick." There's an old saying I always tell people when they get into business —

37:18"If you're not a liberal by 25 you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative by 35 you have no brain." Everyone goes into business thinking they're going to be an all-star, and they quickly realize that doing things the perfection way and quick, there's no money in it. So they quickly, you know — I always use the example of that building. When we first got into this, going from a

37:42couple of duplexes to like a seven-storey 100-plus unit building is absurd. It's just not feasible. What's the saying? You get to pick two of the three — you can have it done for quality, you can have it done for the best price, or you can have it done on time. You can pick any two of those, but you've got to sacrifice one. So if you want to pay top dollar then you can have it done really good quality and on time. Quality and on time, yeah.

38:08Personally, if you don't want to pay much for it, then the quality is not going to be that good. With our crew, because we do all of it, I mean — I don't have mini-crews that do only framing or only one thing. Everyone does everything. Of course, some people have a bit more experience in something, and if we have multiple things going on they'll jump in on what they already know. Yeah. So

38:32in the past and throughout, it seems like you'll have properties and you might have tried to permit or plan and things haven't gone as planned. You might have a bit of an investment in there with consultants and permitting — 30 or 50k — but then you end up selling the property, covering that off, starting up another one. Is the goal always to build though? It is — it's always been about the build. It's just if it doesn't work out, you're going to hand that off to somebody. It's not even that —

38:54for example, for Bears Road, the only reason I believe we sold it is that we didn't have a long-term way of holding it. We were able to secure it, but the long-term — actually holding it to the point where, funding-wise, like one of the lots we'd already demolished getting ready for that eight-unit. Yeah, not enough funds, and the amount borrowed was so big that holding it long-term until we could get to it — which again,

39:22when are we actually going to get to it? The pressure of all that debt from it — yeah, it just didn't make sense. All that money tied up — at that point, basically pretty much all our reserves were in that project. We wouldn't even have the money. Rates were low too. Rates were low, so it was cash-flowing okay. But now with the new interest rates I don't think it'd be making any money — the rent would barely cover the

39:48expenses. So what's your relationship like with some of the other developers in the city? Have you been able to build a rapport with a couple of them? We haven't really — the only one we've sold to is Michael Allen. So that was — I was going to say — we purchased a further down one, closer to the gas station on Bears Road, where we put — we bought a property with the same idea of building a four-unit. Which is on the pictures there. We

40:11demolished it and then he approached us. And the old saying again in business — money talks. And the guy gave us an offer that was, you know, can't refuse. We would be making more money walking away now than after finishing the building. Smart guy. He probably knew that, though, exactly. But he was willing — we negotiated. And at the same time, it made sense for him to pay more because he owned more plots of land

40:39— he owned the neighbors. Yeah, to consolidate into his previous holding. And on top of that we were hitting some issues with the neighbor on the other side because it was a shared driveway — apparently lots of easements in the city. I always tell people — when you ran into the easement problem with the church, was that the driveway as well? Yeah, the Bears Road driveway. Just the driveway? Yeah. So we would need to — it wasn't a big deal,

41:07but you know they made it into a big deal where you have to get it signed off on so many different levels within the church that it just would take too long. They weren't going to budge — they were going to budge, but it would take so long that I'd be on a different project. So I just said, "You know what, we're going to look at something else." But it was a decently designed building. The lots were pretty small in the end — like, I always say

41:30sometimes it's better to just walk away. So we walked from that one. But the Bears Road one we sold to Michael Allen — that was a decent building, but again with the driveway issue it just didn't make much sense. And then he gave us a price we couldn't refuse. On top of that, the city — that's where they were planning to expand, right? They're expanding Bears Road, so they're actually taking a significant amount of land on that specific

41:56location — the closer you get to Connaught, the more they took, especially on that side on the church side. And again, we also had some restructuring and other stuff going on as well, so it made more sense to get rid of that altogether. And yeah, Michael came across and he probably gave us more than we deserved. And he also — he's really, he's

42:29been — I've met up with him and he's driven me around to all his sites and projects, and we talk quite a bit. He's a really, really nice guy. I have never had a bad thing to say about that guy. He opens up to me and explains how the business works, and he gave us some really good advice over the last couple of years and really helped us out. So I think in the development community,

42:50if you show them that you're serious about this, I think they'll treat you seriously and they're very open. In Toronto — and I'll say this — it's very much, "Oh, what are you doing? Who are you? Okay, we're not interested," kind of thing. Over here it's more open. And so is everything in Toronto, right? If you're in sales, if you're in whatever — because I'm from

43:13there I like to make this joke where over here you walk down the street and you just say, "Hey, how's it going?" — "Oh hey, how's it going?" Right. In Toronto it's so close-minded in that sense where you talk to a stranger on the street and they'll ask if you're crazy or say, "Don't talk to me." I go to Toronto to visit friends all the

43:37time — they live in the Beaches — and I'm there, this Atlantic Canadian guy who grew up in PEI and has lived in Halifax for nine years, saying hi to everybody. It's like, "Who the hell is this guy? Stop looking at me, stop talking to me." It's a very, very different environment in that sense. So talk a little bit more about permitting. I think that's an interesting topic. We've had a few developers on the show — Dexel is one — but we never really dived into

44:03just permitting here in the city, what it's like to deal with the city, and compared to maybe your experience in Toronto — and just all around, whether it's the code or certain things that are frustrating. I would say — spent a little bit here. Well, I had a friend who just did a big rental — he bought an F45 gym in Toronto and he told me he's franchising it, right? So he's franchising. He did a full reno there and he said it was so bureaucratic with the permit there that he

44:31was constantly emailing to finalize it. He was constantly emailing the inspector who was in charge of it and he never got a response for months. And then he just told his architect, "Can you talk to this guy?" — and sure enough within hours he gets a response. And it's just like, okay, obviously you just

44:59needed to be the right guy. So over here I find it's — it's not bad. I would say the timelines are quite long, but the reason — I told Andre this — is I think what the problem is is they have building inspectors doing both the permits (the online portion) and actually doing the inspections. So a lot of the time they're

45:27not even in the office to actually review the permit. So for example with this last one — I would send them the revisions, I would send them the revisions and then it would take a week or two. I'd call him and he's like, "I'm out on a site." I can't — what's the address of that project? 3836 Kencrest Avenue. But it got subdivided, so it's now 3836 and 3840 Kencrest Avenue. Yeah, it's kind of tucked away in the corner there. Yeah. So that was a project we picked up —

45:57nothing had been done until 2019. Yeah, it was a blessing. Again, we bought a sneer — finally just to start construction. Yeah, we knocked it down. And our surveyors from SDM said — actually, no, Andre and I noticed it first. I went on Google Maps, they have a measuring tool. What did you have to demo there? What was there? Single-family home. Okay, just one home, and not in good condition. Where you're building the two — yeah, three units. So we

46:22went on Google Maps and we did their measuring tool — I know it's not 100% accurate, but we noticed there was quite a big discrepancy in the square footage: about 3,000 square feet of the lot missing. So we got a surveyor — are you using that as a variable for your lots, square feet, as opposed to acreage? Yeah, that makes more sense, it's more relatable for construction. So we got SDM to come in and do a

46:48survey, and they said, "Yeah, your guys, you're missing about 3,000 square feet." Well, on paper it's 6,600, but it's actually close — did you secure the property at a good price then, as opposed to randomly gaining a third of the property? Before you noticed this? Before — we're talking again 2019, so yeah, a little bit of Lady Luck there, huh? Exactly. And we bought it under asking before this whole fiasco of 100k over minimum. So there was nowhere — that's

47:18situated in that subdivision. There was no like stringent, you know, distances back from the road, things like that — corner lot just, you knew you were going to be able to build the two properties? No, we didn't. We were originally going to do just a regular — I don't even know what we were planning there. Oh no, that's right — when the Centre Plan was being planned, they had a period where you could send in a submission

47:44and say, "I want my property to be such-and-such zoning." So we asked them for HR1, which is high-order residential. Yeah, so we were playing for actually six to eight units, six to eight units. But they said no. There were multiple of those down the street, but apparently we're on the wrong side of the street, wrong side, wrong block or whatever. Literally, like 100 metres down you have multiple buildings at 6, 8, 12 units. Sure.

48:13But apparently wrong side of the street, wrong block as well — that specific block was all HR2. Our site is all HR2s. Yeah. So most of the lots you're purchasing are zoned that way in the peninsula? One or twos? No, for corridors. We're looking for — well, I mean, we just haven't come across any HR1. No, we haven't. So corridor is a more common one. Right, so basically corridor is basically where the buses usually run, and those are zoned for usually up to

48:47about 20 metres — so about six to seven floors — and they have no restrictions on what you can use, and they also have no parking requirements. No parking requirements, no restrictions on number of units. So I see — as a builder you're not required to have parking. I think they're actually shying away — big cities in general have to be within walking distance of transit. Well, they strategically put in the no-parking requirement because they're on major bus lines, so you can walk out the front door

49:11and go to a bus stop. But I've been told that in general, major cities are starting to push away from parking and lots of cars — push away from the congestion. Yeah. And this is one way. Well, that's one thing here, especially how the city is pushing hard on bicycle lanes. For sure. Yeah. So that's one thing — we've also done some of the designs of those buildings that push bicycle storage. Bicycle — right, lots of bicycle parking. We have the bike lanes now, and

49:43we have — which again, I come back to — I was watching closely the previous mayor candidate Matt Whitman, and I 100% agree with him: when one percent of the population uses bike lanes and we're spending hundreds of thousands on that niche of the population that uses them... And same goes, part of the permitting here — everything has to be easily convertible for wheelchair access. So all your hallways now have

50:17to be 36 inches, all the plumbing has to be at a certain height so you can install a low sink. Elevators — not even required out of it. But that's what I'm saying — a lot of those buildings are three floors, four floors. Like the eight-unit was, I believe at the end, five floors? Five floors. Yeah. There's no requirement for an elevator due to just the unit count. For elevators it's unit count? Doesn't matter the height? No, I believe it's

50:46based on how dense it is per floor and other stuff like that. Since there was only two units per floor — it was all figured out within the egress plan too, right? Because egress is such a — just planning and egress, even if it's a parkade or the entrance and exits, fire codes and things. For the most part it's pretty straightforward — you need two exits out of any place to safely get out, the distance between the two exits has to be a certain amount, and then

51:16egress in that sense becomes egress windows and other stuff like that. That's in case you're on the first floor, for example — you should be able to get out right away in that case. The first floor, for example, will need a second exit. Another thing we should talk about is the barrier-free unit. Oh, you've gotta love those. Yeah. One whole unit — yes. The whole unit has to be wheelchair accessible, everything. It is just —

51:46I've talked to some other developers here, and what they do is they equip it as that, and then as soon as the permits approved and finalized they unequip it — because no one's going to pay rent on that unit because of the way it's set up. How much is that going to cost? The kitchen cabinets have to be at a certain height. Knowing that they're just going to swap it over — yeah. And it takes a lot of space out of your

52:09building. That one unit was huge. Yeah. So even in a small building like that — the eight-unit — we had to do... it's usually one of two options. You either make all of them — well, it wasn't called that, there's a specific name for it — basically you can either make them all easily convertible to be wheelchair accessible, or you have one unit that is completely set up already for wheelchairs. But any new building — for example, I built my own house in 20

52:39— end of 2020 into 2021 — and even then I had to build it based on that specification so it could be easily converted to wheelchair accessible. I'm like, it's my own house. It has multiple floors, so to convert it into something that would actually be used didn't make a whole lot of sense. The thermostats are lower now because of that, and my kids start playing with it — you get all that kind of stuff. It's inconvenient, like

53:09even for me now — to look at the thermostat and see what temperature it is I have to bend over. I have my own thoughts on how you can work around that, basically. But you know, now you have to play with the system to get it to what you want, spend extra money, spend extra time planning to do that. And again the extra money — like, they build those barrier-free units knowing they're not

53:36going to get — it's a brand new building, you're not going to — it's not affordable by any means. Even if you had someone in a wheelchair go in there, and for them to find someone to fill that unit doesn't make sense. Especially because you need so much more space between the kitchen cabinets, between every single thing — a three-bedroom unit becomes a one-bedroom. And then the added hardware, the water — exactly. So a three-bedroom... that building had a ramp — ramping — yeah, that building had

54:10seven units that were three-bedroom and that one was a one-bedroom because of all the space required. You see why the developer, once they're fully approved, will make a lot more sense to convert back to a three-bedroom. So you're just doing double the work. And again, you can avoid it — the city is going to now force people to keep it that way as well. And again there — we unfortunately lately have a lot of government and council and other

54:41stuff overstepping their bounds. Like this is the same idea of — you know, at the end of the day, you think it's your own property. I kind of understand it's not — they have full control. Yeah, you're not — you're being controlled. And we were talking, we started talking about the height limit. The only thing that comes to mind for why they wouldn't have a height limit is to not have that crazy discrepancy — you know, if you have no height limit someone

55:08comes in and puts up a 60-floor building in a residential neighbourhood. It looks out of place — but it looks out of place until the rest of them are being built kind of thing. It would put a lot of pressure on land values, so properties will go up in value like crazy as soon as you allow that. Again, we bought those properties for $200k–$240k, the next one for 2019... or $400–$500k? Yeah, yeah. And then we bought this

55:39one for the eight-unit for $306k, I believe — a little bit more but nothing too significant. Now they're all paying more — not just because of the price increases during the pandemic, but also because they're all corridor-zoned and they know you can actually build something a lot bigger here. So the use of the land, the value of the land increases significantly. Well, the government here is trying to push that,

56:10because right now, when we originally applied for the permit, there's a community hearing where the neighbours come in and get to put their voice in and their concerns. They're actually trying to get rid of that altogether. I don't know where they're at on that, but it's to push permits along a lot faster. Because it's a whole year for everyone to have their voice. Yeah. And so they just want to push it through — and if it's as-of-right, because at the end does it

56:36accomplish anything? Because when — exactly — when we did our eight-unit, I was in front of city council. The neighbours talked — they talked about the balconies, they talked about the look of the building, how they didn't like it. And at the end of the day the councillor said, "Well, we approved this zoning, and to remove balconies doesn't make any sense from a developer standpoint." So they approved our building. And Andre and I after that were like, you

57:05know what, what a waste of time. Three months to get to actual council. The worst part is they heard everyone and then ignored all of it. Because at the end of the day it came down to HRM themselves — someone from the department came in and said all of everything you appealed doesn't apply, everything is as-of-right, they have a right to put a balcony, they have a right to set the height, the lighting — the lighting, like

57:36everything was about the lighting, the way it shadowed into their backyards. Again, the exterior lights — they didn't like the way it was protruding more toward their backyard. What I was told is they went to an architect and the architect said, "Okay, this is what you can argue to delay their permit," and lighting was one of them. So it's like a husband and a wife next door — when they're arguing they don't like looking at the lights, or the lights or they

58:03don't want people looking into their place. That's the thing. The whole process — we got to the council meeting, the HRM development officer dismissed all their appeal, and then the council said, "Well, HRM dismissed the whole thing, so I guess we'll — yeah, the whole thing is fine, keep going." And I'm like, well, then why the hold-up? Why didn't HRM dismiss the whole thing right away? Why did it have to get to the point of there's an appeal, we'll have to go to council? If HRM could have

58:27dismissed the whole thing right there and then — yeah. So these are some of the experiences you have. Luckily enough, it worked out even better for us because of the whole thing — because it got held up, we were able to secure the rest of the properties. Because when we started looking at the rest of the properties, because we got held up that much, we thought — we just finished those two Bears Road properties and bought that one right

58:52away. So okay, we're going to build a new one. Because again, as I said, the new build gives us more opportunity to get into bigger buildings without looking for something to just renovate. So we bought that one — great. Knocked it down, applied for the permit. The permit shouldn't take too long, you know, a month or two to get through back and forth with HRM and then get it going. And then the appeal comes through. One thing is the trees too, like — that was a big shocker to me. So any

59:19tree on city property has to be either replaced or replanted. And the cost of the trees was pretty high — some of them go all the way up to $50,000 per tree to demolish and plant a new one, depending on the size and maturity of it. Luckily ours was tiny, but it was still like three or four thousand dollars for a tree that's dying. So I have no

59:51problem replacing it, but it's just such an added cost. And there was also a delay on that. I've been told they have a whole department just for trees — a whole department just to protect the trees, to plant new trees, to set up what they're doing. And again, they blocked the entire permit until we came out with the plan for the trees — who and what and everything, the landscaper and all that other stuff. And it literally

60:18comes down to: "Here's a comment — you need to replace those trees when you're done. Here's a list of whatever." Landscaping — we do it ourselves, again all ourselves. And it got to the point where I remember they wanted — with the demolition, they wanted the services kept as part of the demolition. You kept the services? The old services, the water, sewer, the nursery

60:46— and they said it has to be a licensed contractor. I'm like, okay, where do I find one? Do you have a list? "Oh, we're not allowed to recommend anything." I'm not looking for a recommendation — I'm looking for the list of everyone who's, like — "No, no, we're not allowed to." I started — not yelling, but — "You make no sense. I am not looking for a recommendation. I'm just looking for — give me a list, give me a list of people over there.

61:11Can I call anyone?" Who's the word? "Approved." Yeah, yeah — a list of everyone who's approved, who has a license to do that work. You should have one — if you're giving out licenses to work on it, you should have that list. And I now start arguing with the person there, which — we were quite shocked. And that's how we met one of the managers there. He came out like, "Who's that guy, what happened?" Yeah, the manager came out, and now you have a great

61:41relationship with him. No, he came over because they were all in shock that someone started arguing with them to that extent. So he called me up and told me, "If you have any issues going forward, just call me — I'll push things through." And sometimes when it gets that bad you just have to push it. Push comes to shove, there's a right time to do that, exactly. Yeah, and it does pay off. I'm not going to be

62:04doing it every day. But another thing is that development costs across the country have gone up, and we've noticed a big one with Halifax Water — what a price increase they've added. So what is it now per unit? About seven thousand. Seven thousand. And what was it when we first applied? About two. So it tripled in just the last three or four years. The water — well, your time in water is going to be more than that. That's not necessary, that's not — you need to

62:36well — in Toronto permit fees have doubled, and at the same time — that's the thing I'm not sure about where they've been bringing those in. For example, the triplex — that's one single connection for the building, nothing crazy, it was a one-inch pipe. They charge by unit. You just connected to the local whatever, but each unit that connects to that one pipe is getting a big fat charge, right? Even though it's one pipe — it's not like you're doing three or four connections. So they're charging by the unit, and you just have to zone it off to

63:05each tenant. No, it's not to each tenant — it's one line, a shared water line. Oh okay. But there is something new that I've been told is smart water meters that you can put in — apparently a lot of developers are putting them here from a company out of Toronto. Yeah, so it literally watches each unit's water usage. But it's still only using one pipe. Even then, putting in meters is fine, but at that point you also take the

63:30responsibility of charging them. Have you guys considered any of the renewable products, like rainwater recycling — green water recycling? Green rainwater is what I've considered. I've been told that's really big. But charging stations for cars — yes, I'm going to look at putting — someone contacted me about it, yeah — I'm going to look at putting charging stations in our North End underground parking. Because Teslas and stuff like that are much more common than they were back in the day. So then I believe

63:59pretty much all the big manufacturers — they all have, in 2023–24, shower units that recycle the water, purify it, clean it, and it comes back through the system, as opposed to wasting water every time you shower. And there's a lot of new technology and units. Unfortunately it comes down to the price — the design, the prices of all those things — they make no sense. It's like you have to purposely lose money on it just to kind of

64:27get there. It's probably more volume-based projects, too — like, a lot of units — but even then you're probably spending more money. Sometimes there are grants and other stuff for buildings to get to a certain level. What about solar lights for parking lots? Like even the pendant lighting that just has solar — you know, they'll light up at night after being in the sun all day. It's pretty standard now, isn't it? Yeah, yeah,

64:50it used to never be that way. But in terms of the environmentally friendly — one of our neighbors back home in Toronto said that he's working with a whole development team and architect team, and he said, because I first approached him about these buildings — he said, "If you find me a building that's 100 percent sustainable, I'll fund the whole thing." I've yet to find that. But he's huge on that. Is it like an actual net-zero building? Net-zero is what they're looking for.

65:16Green roof — basically green everything. They would fund it. But that's the thing: would it be profitable? I'm not sure. That's unfortunately all those technologies right now — you're paying for the moral virtue of being green kind of thing. Yeah. It's hard to measure. Unfortunately, until it becomes profitable and makes more sense to have a net-zero building than to connect it to all the utilities and everything else, and to build that

65:46way — and to shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energies — it's happening but it just takes time. I would argue that the pandemic has shown that oil is not going anywhere, especially with that war happening in Ukraine. Oh man, you know — I was getting a quote from the fibre cement guys here, a company, and he was telling me that their costs are going up 20 percent every few months because of the energy costs in Europe, because of

66:15their products coming from Italy and the Netherlands or something like that. It's just trickled and globally affected everything. So that's how interconnected we are now. Is it okay to ask — how do you have some family that have fled Ukraine since, and came here? Yes, yeah. Is this your grandmother? My grandmother moved here during the whole thing because again they all had to flee and she had nowhere to go. Your uncle and cousins are still there? My uncle is

66:45still there. Has he left his home, though? He moved away for a little while, I believe, further out, and now that they've pushed some of it back he came back. He's back but his home's not intact — not at all. He had a unit that my parents helped him purchase there, and he said all his furniture is broken, his windows are shattered. He came in just to tape some of it off for the winter kind of thing.

67:16Right now I believe he lives in my aunt's house that was left a little bit further out. And even then, half the time I think he was sitting there in the basement or some sort of bunker or something. Describe what that feels like for you.

67:36Do you watch it? Do you follow it closely? Personally, I know my parents followed it closely. I myself have a personal preference, so that doesn't trigger me. It's not that — the thing I'm mostly mad at is the whole situation, because it's political, and both sides suffer — both people on both sides, both Russian and Ukrainian — for politicians' decisions. For the regular people. So I get that there are a lot of Russians that don't want this, exactly as well. And then

68:05again — I don't think any particular Russian is sitting there saying, "Yes, go attack Ukraine." You know, they're brother-and-sister cultures and countries. And what's happening right now is, in my opinion, Putin is fighting the Western — the NATO — coming too close to him. He doesn't like them, he doesn't like their culture, he doesn't want their armed forces on his border. And Zelensky is doing the opposite — he's pushing back, like, "How dare you tell me what to do" kind of

68:39thing. But you're killing your own people because of that — over what? Over the fact that he wants to stay neutral, basically. And it's not like he's fighting in the trenches — he has some photos of him wearing some stuff. It's a photo shoot. It's hard to know with the news — what truth are you getting, what narrative is coming from both sides? And it takes a long time for that to surface. And then again, looking at the Western culture here —

69:11a lot of my opinions these days would be considered not politically correct, because I'm more traditional. You know, I'm 31, I have three kids, I have my own house, I have my own business. My views are quite conservative — you could call them that. Having lived here? Having grown up — I didn't even grow up in Ukraine. I grew up in Israel. I lived only until I was five years old in Ukraine.

69:39But I've been brought up on more traditional values. Looking at what's going on right now with gender, with the so-called equality where they're pushing it — I like how Jordan Peterson put it: "We're not looking for equal outcomes, we're looking for equal opportunities for people." And a lot of people confuse that — they want equal outcomes, they want 50/50, even if it's at the detriment of their own gender and their own individual health.

70:12And then you have the whole kind of situation — that's why climate change... it used to be global warming, right, now it's climate change. And again, I do my research quite deep, looking into all those things. My research shows, for example, that climate change is normal to Earth and there's no evidence that we contributed a significant amount towards it. And if we did, it's a minor speed-up of the process — we didn't actually cause

70:45the warming of Earth. And there's not a direct correlation — no, nobody knows, by no means. And that's what I'm saying — to fight it to the extent of "we're going to carbon tax" — you can't learn too much about renewables in your buildings either, for that reason. Not that it doesn't make sense — it's a similar stance to what Elon Musk has: we need to push in that direction. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to burn stuff. Okay, if we can get renewable clean energy,

71:19but that's a good segue into why developers need to be bottom-line conscious to the hilt. Because, you know — and let architects create... that's everything. Like you said, it's margin and money talks. Unless we're talking money-wise — we're borrowing significant amounts of money, putting unlimited personal guarantees out of our own name, yeah — the numbers have to make sense either way. You can be ultra-green and

71:55bicycle-friendly all you want — it's basically biting into our own profits. We could have used that space for storage, we could use that space for something people actually use. Again, only one percent of the population actually uses bikes. And this is not an encouragement for them to use bikes — if you wanted them to use bikes, you'd need significant, like covered space or underground or something they could use year-round. And even then, five months out of the year you're not going

72:23to want to ride it — especially here, forget the bike. So what about public transportation? Proper public transportation that comes on time, that gets you everywhere you need. Yeah, that's what I really want to talk about — the traffic here. They're adding all these buildings, but I don't see the roads getting any bigger. There are going to be big problems with Halifax's infrastructure and how they've designed the city, because I think the roads were designed for horse and carriage — honestly, that's how narrow they are here.

72:55Yeah, and you can add all these buildings — that's great. But when there's X amount more cars and the population has doubled, you know, you're going to go from having to wake up 20 minutes early to leave your house to go to work to about an hour. It's going to turn into a lot. Right down here in our location, even at the end of Lower Water Street — well, some of the park is closed.

73:19The Cogswell — the Cogswell interchange removal is underway. Hopefully that changes some of it. But that needs to happen everywhere. I know they're going to do that on Bears Road — they're adding a whole lane — but it's not happening fast enough to keep up with the amount of construction. Going back to the whole thing — it's a logistical nightmare. And going to the whole developer profit thing: it's starting to not make much sense, because with rates climbing the way they are and

73:45housing stops — apartments aren't going up anymore — but we're having this crazy amount of people coming in. I remember they said the last quarter was the largest number of Canadians or immigrants to come to Canada ever, or since the '40s or '50s. Yeah, certainly. Where are they going to go? I mean, if that's the case, there's no way house prices are going to fall — they're going to go up. And that's one of our biggest hopes to bridge the gap in apprenticeship — is immigration. Yes.

74:12And that's just people moving here from other parts of Canada or the US, but from all over the world — tradespeople moving here. Well, I saw a crazy stat and I showed this to Andre the other day: we had almost the same number of immigrants as the United States last year, and the United States is about 10 times our population. And if that's what's going to happen, they need to really light a fire. And that's from the

74:36direct result of other occurrences in the world — like what's happening in Ukraine, people coming here. Maybe a couple years ago it was other instances. Well, Canada has always been kind of desirable. You don't hear it in the news, you know. You can travel with the Canadian flag and people love you, exactly. But that's like the housing starts — it's going to be a big problem here. Maple syrup and hockey, exactly, exactly. And maple syrup,

75:05hockey, and happy people. "Oh, you're Canadian? You must be nice!" Yeah, exactly. So give it a try. Exactly. Yeah. But in Toronto it's getting really bad. I have a couple of family friends in the development game there and they said they just stopped. Whatever profit they had — because of the rate hikes three or four months ago — and it's the financing, the way the interest rates and the financing is, and also like I said the

75:32development fees are so high. They're not just going to wait to see if things — well, that's what they're doing. They're going to stop. So they stop mid-projects? No, no — they're finishing what they have, but that's it. They're not starting new ones. It depends on the developer. Do you think we're seeing that a little bit here in the last six months? They're going to finish what they have but they're not going to move forward on breaking ground until — I think that if it continues, you guys aren't — you guys don't

75:54have that mentality, though. No, no, you're moving forward. You're moving forward on the North End. A lot of those developers locally — they subcontract most of it, so they don't care — they can just stop. But whatever, yeah, they're not doing the construction themselves. He stops, his guys leave — it takes time to build a team, to train them, you know. And that's what I'm saying — we have plans for the next two years, probably longer, and we're going to keep building. For the next two years

76:20within those 200 units that you're planning to have built under your umbrella — what's the breakdown? Are there any larger ones, or are most of them under six units? No, Bears Road — that's the last of the small stuff we're doing. Okay. You've got like 30, 40 units, maybe 60? Depending on how much more we acquire. I'm looking at talking with other neighbours and seeing... so you're ready to take that leap kind of now? Well, the one on Windsor Street is going to be either

76:46between 12 and 30 — somewhere in between there, depending on the numbers. And that would be our first jump to a decent-sized building. Still going to be wood, though. Yeah, stick to wood for now. But still, that's a great milestone to get to — getting a 30-unit built. And the location is great. I've always said, coming from Toronto — I know what real estate is like there — location is everything. And that Windsor one was perfect for us

77:11in what ways? Location will always hold the test of time. Right. You just mean as far as traffic, what's around it, bus stops — I'm just curious what goes into that. I know what you mean when you say location. Yeah, it's just all kinds of area factors. For example, there we didn't plan on doing any parking, and there's a bus stop right in front of it and there's a grocery store

77:35right beside it. Where do you need to go? You need to get food — all your essentials are right there. And that's why I say they're trying to get rid of parking in the city, because that way there are less cars, less traffic, less congestion, and it allows developers to use that space for storage. One thing I would put in — when it comes down to infrastructure — Halifax might be lucky in that sense in

78:01terms of — I'm still hoping we're able, probably in the next five to ten years, to push through autonomous driving. And that I believe will reduce the load significantly on the roads, parkades, and everything else. More people... although, yeah, so you're going to have very few people who actually just drive to drive. Especially if it's a five-minute drive. The issue of course, right, you know — all those cars on the road, you look at every single car:

78:36there's one person in each car and it's a five-seater. If you build tiny one-person mini autonomous taxis and it costs you about as much as your own car or less — especially if it's less than that, it's more than a bus fare clearly, but less than it would cost you to own a car — and you don't even have to worry about parking, you don't have to worry about a bunch of other stuff, especially downtown. Just to eliminate parking for a lot

79:06of people could free up one hour of their day and save them $200 a month. Yeah, I've heard a lot — this is a big deal. A lot of people are charged for parking spots, and on top of that, when you look downtown you can't find a parking spot for less than $150. Come on. Add that on top of rent — that's a majority of income. On Barrington — I'm at the end of Barrington Street, the Southport building. Yeah. And another

79:30thing — the rent here — we should touch on that. The rent here has gone insane. We have the highest... yeah, a one-bedroom you can't get for under $1,800–$2,000, right? And for a one-bedroom — making that call, it's probably about $1,600 average. Well, because the comparison is, when you were looking for an apartment on the commons, remember you said that? Yeah. When was that — 2017? Off the commons, on the corner of Cunard and Robie — the big orange brick building

80:05there on the corner. Yeah, of course. I used to live there for about a year, year and a half. I used to pay $1,600, everything included — they gave you an incentive, parking included, electricity, heat, everything included. And you said they were giving incentives to come and rent because there was such low demand, they needed people to fill in. That was a little bit after that. I just remember on the same street — there were multiple buildings on Robie and Cunard

80:32— they used to offer, like, a free TV or one month free, just to fill in. You won't find that here. That was probably around 2015–16. Yeah. For example, I've bought a couple of houses and I'm renting them out before we obviously demolish them. And the amount of people that come — some people would be like, "Hey, you know, I need this place really badly — I'll offer six months up front." Right? So if you're kind of

80:59not Airbnb, but you're renting long-term? Usually one year. Okay, but yeah, the demand is through the roof. You'll get like 50 showings and people like, "I need this right now." The urgency — yeah. In one of the houses we had, the biggest selling point was that it was on the peninsula, it had parking, and it had a fenced backyard for the dog. Apparently you can't find that. People were willing to pay top dollar for that. And yeah, but that's

81:27our big thing. A lot of people who, during the pandemic, did not have pets got pets at home. And we've always been pet-friendly — to this day everything's pet-friendly. All those four units are pet-friendly. It goes back to the cat piss that got him started, right? Exactly — if it smells like that, that's good. I've got dog piss in my condo every second morning from my dog, still. But yeah, the rent — I don't know

81:54where it's going, because it just keeps going up. And I feel the tenants' pain. There are a lot of places where they're still renting for cheap and they know as soon as they leave, the landlord is jacking it up. And not capped in for rent increases and what they're allowed to be — as per the caps. There are no caps? No, two percent was always the cap. My personal belief on this rent thing is the only way they're going to solve it is just let it go — supply, double the supply, build as much as you can. It's going to take time before they'd really have to let go before it catches up, because building those buildings is going to take a while.

82:22And even then, with the 9,000–10,000–12,000 surplus of population coming in each year right now, it doesn't sound like a lot. But like — I've heard people tell me, "Look how many buildings we've built — look at them." It's not enough. It's about 20–30 buildings. Even then, let's just say four or five thousand units — with 9,000 people coming in, you're right. And it's going to take a couple of years to build all of them. Even with the cost of construction, even with the lead times and different things — we're, you know, as far as you both are

82:47concerned, there's going to be building to the hills and rent's going to go up. And it's going to be like that until the demand is so high that people are willing to pay six months up front, 12 months up front — they're willing to go $200–$300 over asking. They can't afford that, some of them — to the point that they cannot afford it, but "I gotta live somewhere." Yeah, it's a basic economic standpoint: supply and demand. The demand is so high right now that until the supply catches up,

83:15yeah. Ontario actually just rezoned — or they're pushing their zoning and housing mandates — where they're making every lot in, I forget if it's all of Ontario or certain spots, up to four units even if it's a single-family home. So they really want to push the density now. Right — so nothing's being built under four? No, going forward — no more than... the mayor of Toronto — four units and up? No, I think they just allowed it up to four anyway. So you can do it — you can do four units, oh, anywhere?

83:40You know, there is — right. Okay. There's an old study in New Zealand — I forget when it was — but they said they did a correlation between zoning rules and house prices, and they said that if municipalities and the government didn't have these crazy restrictions on zoning, housing would be about 30 to 40 percent more affordable. So zoning is a big thing — it really dictates the prices of homes. Like, when we bought Bears Road it was a single-family home. You change

84:13the zoning and suddenly the price triples, quadruples. And so — you've got what's being built there now, it was bought by one of the bigger developers here and they're putting in an 80-unit building. So it was rezoned after we had it. Yeah, it was rezoned after we sold it. But that's why he wanted to buy it — right, because how come it was rezoned? So what goes into that? Transit line. Major bus

84:42routes. So all of a sudden it can be an 80-unit because it's right on the critical corridor path. Yes — critical paths like Robie, whatever the Centre Plan result says. I believe it will have started in 2004 or something like that, so that's how long it took. And it was released in 2019. Yeah. The government — they're lacking so far behind. It's like — they just take a long time. But that's the thing — they're always late, they always react, they don't think ahead;

85:13they always react. "Oh, we have a systemic problem." There may be people in there who understand it — it's just too many systems. My only question is: to what end? Like, why are they controlling to that extent? To what end? So they can keep property values up? They know there was a shortage so the values are always up. And again, who are they to butt in? If anything, they're making it worse for everyone, and they're making the city unaffordable. Okay, right now all the Ukrainians are

85:45coming in to work for me — basically their entire salary goes to pay for rent. They're surviving on donations. Maybe they have a second person that can work, hopefully full-time, if not part-time, to at least cover some of the other expenses. A lot of the guys, especially if they came in single, are grouping in threes or fours just to survive here — renting a whole house so they each get a bedroom. They're all working, carpooling probably. Carpooling,

86:16yeah, exactly. And even then a lot of them are still just barely getting by. But I keep telling them — at this point, you need to — for example, commuting from anywhere in HRM — say Clayton Park, Dartmouth, especially — like, before, from Timberlea where I have my current project, it takes them about an hour and a half to two hours to get there. Yeah, each way. Which, you know, for us — eight hours a day or whatever — exactly, at that

86:47point I'm telling them, especially if there's multiple of them: just buy a car. Work the extra hour or two — you cover all of your expenses for the car and everything else. It just makes more sense that way. Yeah. Listen, guys — I mean, we could talk here all day. This has been a great, long, in-depth episode, and it's really great to see you, Oliver, coming from Toronto and

87:13pivoting out of the military, and you, Andre — just both of you, young guys, up and coming. Congratulations. Yeah, yeah, exactly. New cycles of new entrepreneurs. Yeah, I know — it's exciting to sit with you guys. And I'm sure we'll be in touch in the future on some of your future projects. I think we have to. Yeah. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for inviting us. Yeah, really

87:42appreciate it. Cheers. This episode is brought to you by Cook Insurance, your trusted insurance broker in Atlantic Canada for 50 years. Insurance is complex, and the Cook team focuses on delivering comprehensive solutions for your construction needs, including builders risk, wrap-up liability, performance bonds, and project-specific construction. A Navacord partner since 2020, Cook is one of the largest construction brokers in Canada and offers national strength with a local touch. Whatever your insurance needs are, Cook has you covered. We would like to take this time to thank a long-time sponsor of our media platform, FCA Surety.

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