Halifax renovated houses what the market wants

Alex Hastie, founder and coowner of Kestrel Builders, focuses on renovating houses instead of new construction for two reasons.

It’s what his clients want, and it’s what he knows best.

Hastie grew up in a family construction business in the valley (his business partner worked at the same company), and when he moved to the city because of his spouse’s job in 2016, it was time to hang out his own shingle.

He met the owner of a design company who led him to some projects, which allowed him to get his foot in the door of the Halifax reno scene.

Given what he calls “the sheer amount of older homes in Halifax that need updating,” he was busy right away.

“Right away the types of projects I got into, working with designers, was remodelling kitchens and bathrooms and whole home renovations as well,” he said. “It’s a bit of a puzzle, trying to take things apart and put them back together. I like the challenge of it.”

Hastie lives on Agricola Street, in a mixed-use residential neighbourhood, where, he says “here, anything goes.”

Professionally, zoning can be a big part of his life, depending on the extent of the renovations his clients want to accomplish.

“If we get into additions and backyard suites, that would be mostly where we get into zoning stuff; also adding units. Every zone is different,” said Hastie. “We get a lot of project proposals for backyard suites. Zoning does play a part in it, and we have an architect (in training) working with us, and he can whip up plans pretty quick for us, so we can take them to the city pretty quickly. Every area is different. It has been pretty quick lately getting responses, as far as permitting goes. The new permitting portal they have works well and for our needs, things have been streamlined, in a way.”

Even a small project requires a permit, but Hastie said there is less red tape when construction stays within a building’s footprint. He’s never had a building inspector, or anyone else from the city, suggest to him a certain site would lend itself to a bigger build containing more residences.

“I haven’t had that interaction with the city,” he said. “I believe in adding density to what’s existing in the city. No one is really a fan of condos these days, even though in some areas they’re necessary to support some form of housing, but densifying what we have available is the best way forward because you can keep these heritage homes and update them to support densification.”

Kestrel Builders can have as many as nine tradespeople working on one of the three or four projects they have on the go at a time. They complete about eight in a year, depending on scope, and have become more efficient by online filtering of potential projects to focus on what best suits them.

“Our projects usually start around 150 to 300 thousand, and then all the way up, we’ve done projects that were two million.”