The premier, the developer and the string of defective Sydney buildings
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For Aland, one of Sydney’s largest private development and construction companies, the opening of The Archibald Precinct – a $375 million mixed-use venture on the Central Coast – was a public relations dream.
NSW Racing Minister David Harris, Gosford MP Liesl Tesch, federal MP Gordon Reid and Mayor Lawrie McKinna were on hand to celebrate the completion of the complex, which features 323 apartments, a hotel and hospitality venues.
But lending the December event a rarefied air was the attendance of Premier Chris Minns and Building Commissioner James Sherrard, who stood alongside Andrew Hrsto – Aland’s founder, owner and chief executive – for the gold ribbon-cutting ceremony. A video later plastered across Aland’s social media accounts features the pair prominently.
A Herald investigation reveals some of Aland Group’s developments have been blighted by serious defects, massive fines and legal troubles.
Since January 2019, SafeWork has issued 144 regulatory notices to the construction arm of Aland, including 19 prohibition notices and 12 penalty notices.
“SafeWork NSW has conducted significant work with Aland B \& W Pty Ltd in response to work health and safety issues,” a spokesman said.
In early 2024, the District Court of NSW ordered Aland Group to pay $225,000 when a migrant worker suffered traumatic injuries after being crushed by a bundle of six-metre steel reinforcement bars on one of Aland’s sites. In April this year, the Building Commission issued Aland Group with a $220,000 fine, the largest in the regulator’s history.
Aland owner Andrew Hrsto outside his North Sydney residential development. Edwina Pickles
The revelations have prompted questions about why Minns and Sherrard boosted the image of a development company that had, just days earlier, responded to a series of show-cause notices from the Building Commission.
A spokesperson for Aland said: “ALAND and Founder Andrew Hrsto acknowledge the conditions and penalties imposed by Building Commission NSW. As a Gold Star iCIRT-rated developer and construction group, with a proven track record of quality and integrity, ALAND works closely with the regulator across all projects.”
The defects trail
Aland brands itself as “Sydney’s trusted property developer”. Since 2002, the company says it has built 5000 apartments across more than 45 developments, with another 1500 units under construction and 6500 in planning.
“Over recent years ALAND has acquired an enviable reputation for creating affordable housing of extremely high quality in one of the world’s most expensive cities – it is a reputation that Andrew has pledged to defend,” Hrsto’s personal website said.
The premier said at the topping out of The Archibald Precinct in September 2024: “We embrace developers that build high-quality establishments like this one.”
However, a series of engineering reports seen by the Herald reveal a different story for some of Aland’s developments.
In early 2025, a strata manager requested an urgent engineering inspection after making an alarming finding in the basement of a Campsie apartment block.
Cracking in one of Aland’s developments in Campsie.ALJ Engineers
The load-bearing elements of the development – completed by Aland six years earlier – showed “signs of considerable structural damage”, engineers found, requiring “urgent back propping to control the risk of local slab failure”.
Engineers urged stakeholders to “consider this report seriously and act promptly to ensure the safety of residents and the public”.
The Canterbury Road development was next door to another Aland development, which was also completed in 2019. A 500-page defect report issued in 2025, which the Herald has seen, revealed faults in about one-third of all the units and cracking in concrete slabs in the complex’s common areas.
Noviion Engineering (NE) concluded that apartments were riddled with waterproofing problems and inadequate falls in wet areas, and uncontrolled water was seeping through cracks in basement concrete slabs.
One of Aland’s developments in Campsie.Domain
“The appearance of these defects in approximately 30 per cent of the apartments inspected indicates that poor construction practices have been implemented throughout construction of the complex,” it said.
“While the occurrence of individual defects remains significant, these systemic defects demonstrate a continued lack of due care and skill exhibited in completing works.”
Major fire safety defects were also uncovered by a fire engineering consultant, meaning the building’s fire protection was “likely to fail, by allowing the spread of smoke/fire beyond the point of origin, likely to result in the destruction of part of the building”.
Water seeps into the basement flooring in Campsie.
Another fire safety report in April 2025, this one at an Aland development in Schofields, also uncovered a series of defects in the building’s fire safety system.
Sherrard said meeting with builders, developers and industry stakeholders to improve building quality and compliance was a “key part of my role”.
“Engaging with industry does not affect our ability to take strong regulatory action where it is warranted,” he said. “Our actions in this matter speak for themselves. Building Commission NSW investigated the conduct, completed disciplinary proceedings and imposed significant penalties where misconduct was established.”
The rise of Andrew Hrsto
“You could say that building and property runs in my blood,” Hrsto said on his personal website.
The son of European migrants, the businessman says his precocious talent was evident “even as a schoolboy” after he was fast-tracked from packing shelves at Woolworths to running the Moorebank fruit and vegetable department.
Andrew Hrsto’s house in Vaucluse.Domain
Despite forgoing university to work as a panelbeater, Hrsto translated his business acumen into establishing Aland Group in 2002, spending five years in planning and project management before moving his company into handling both development and construction in the late 2000s, according to an interview with Apartments.com.au early last year.
In 2022, he bought a $19.5 million home in Vaucluse before spending another $3 million on a renovation with five bedrooms, a new swimming pool, sauna, home theatre, bar and library.
Aland became a major partner of the Parramatta Eels in 2017. In 2024, Hrsto became the white knight, taking on completing the beleaguered Skyview apartment development in Castle Hill after disgraced developer Jean Nassif fled the country owing $1.5 billion.
But Hrsto’s commitment to defend his company’s standing has at times been overzealous.
The Aland development in Schofields.Domain
One of his first forays into the public spotlight came after major cracks were discovered in the Mascot Towers apartment complex. The owners’ corporation alleged in 2020 the damage had been caused by deep excavation work undertaken next door by Aland Developments.
Hrsto initially dismissed claims that construction on his neighbouring Peak Towers development caused the damage. He blasted the allegations as unfounded, “uninformed and self-interested” speculation, saying the structural cracking predated Aland’s construction by “several years”.
But after the Mascot Towers’ owners pursued Aland through the Supreme Court for $15 million in losses and damages, Aland reached a confidential, out-of-court settlement in 2022.
The case of Mohammad Hoque
As Hrsto waged a courtroom battle against the owners of Mascot Towers, Aland’s construction arm faced another crisis.
About 7.30am on August 24, 2020, a tower crane operator working on an Aland construction site in Edmondson Park lost control of the load he was carrying, striking a Bengali-speaking migrant labourer with a bundle of six-metre steel reinforcement bars.
Mohammad Hoque, a 58-year-old who had been working on the site for just four days, was suspended against adjacent formwork for up to a minute before nearby workers could pull him to the ground, according to a court judgment.
Despite an ambulance being called, Aland’s construction supervisor turned it away after determining Hoque “had not been seriously injured and therefore did not require an ambulance”. Hoque was later found to have suffered multiple fractured ribs, haematuria and a torn rotator cuff requiring surgical repair.
Aland’s development in Edmondson Park.Aland
An ambulance was called at 9.05am for Hoque, who was struggling to breathe, 90 minutes after the incident. The construction supervisor directed work to recommence, and rebuilt the formwork deck against which Hoque had been pinned.
SafeWork was notified at 11.16am.
District Court Judge Wendy Strathdee found in February 2024 the “injury, emotional harm, loss or damage caused by the offence was substantial” and an aggravating factor, while the “risk was not simply foreseeable but was foreseen”.
Not only had an exclusion zone for the crane not been established, Hoque hadn’t been onsite for any of the safety talks, and had a limited understanding of English, the court found. Hoque was told to sign a safety induction form despite it not being provided in his native language or explained to him.
Aland pleaded guilty and was fined. A civil matter brought by Hoque against Aland is before the courts.
In response to questions from the Herald, the company’s spokesperson said: “In relation to SafeWork NSW, Aland has invested heavily into its safety processes and procedures and continues to champion a safe working environment.”
Five months after Strathdee’s judgment, a Building Commission disciplinary investigation issued Hrsto with a reprimand and a $1500 fine after finding he provided misleading information by not disclosing his pending criminal charges on his company’s contractor licence application.
Hrsto was caught with a sandwich bag containing 0.95 grams of cocaine but escaped conviction and was issued a good behaviour bond after entering a guilty plea to drug possession.
The same Building Commission disciplinary investigation also found several unit owners of an Aland development in Turramurra had been impacted as the “works … were completed without due care and skill”. An earlier report in 2018 found water leak issues in “numerous units”.
Building Commission investigation
“Great chatting with you as always mate,” Aland’s head of corporate affairs emailed Minns’ staff in June 2025. “As discussed, the Premier and my boss Andrew Hrsto caught up briefly at a Business NSW meeting this morning where they agreed to catch up. Could help by suggesting some timeslots for next week?”
The email arrived nine months after Minns had appeared onsite to celebrate the topping out of Hrsto’s Central Coast project. The July meeting would be the second time Hrsto bypassed the planning minister to deal with the premier’s office directly.
In the background, Building Commission investigators were finalising a long-running probe into Aland and Hrsto. Internal documents seen by the Herald show the company and Hrsto were issued with show cause notices on October 15 last year.
The disciplinary investigation into the company revolved around three matters: the unauthorised removal of Endeavour Energy assets in St Marys in March 2023, the use of unlicensed contractors on a development, and the provision of false documentation to the planning department.
Building Commissioner James Sherrard.Janie Barrett
The investigation found Aland employees had removed live overhead cables despite warnings from Endeavour Energy about the dangers of doing so. It resulted in a childcare centre losing power, which the Building Commission deemed as being of “extreme severity”.
The company would be fined $220,000, with another $40,000 issued to Hrsto personally, while a series of conditions would be placed on the building licences of Aland and those involved. Aland and Hrsto withdrew their appeal against the decision in June.
The disciplinary decision also criticised Aland’s engagement of three unlicensed subcontractors who carried out formwork, the installing of fire doors and frames and residential building works on a St Marys development worth nearly $9 million.
According to the disciplinary notice, the company then provided the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure with false building licence numbers for contractors who did the exterior windows and doors and fire doors.
Aland explained the provision of false licence numbers by way of “genuine administrative oversight and lack of robust internal system licensing verification system”.
The overall conduct was considered so egregious that the suspension, cancellation and permanent disqualification of the contractor licence were considered. But the report states those measures would impact “innocent consumers and exacerbating the housing crisis in Sydney” while “jeopardising Aland’s reputation and commercial standing”.
A separate Building Commission report found that, as director of Aland, Hrsto engaged in improper conduct by contracting unlicensed people to undertake residential building work. His failure to implement sufficient “systems and controls” to prevent Aland from interfering with electricity works was also grounds for disciplinary action.
“I consider that Mr Hrsto’s conduct fell short of the standard of competence, diligence and integrity that a member of the public is entitled to reasonably expect of a reasonably competent practitioner,” the commission concluded, issuing a $40,000 fine and requiring completion of compliance training.
A spokeswoman for Minns did not respond to questions about whether his office was aware of Aland’s major incidents, including the SafeWork prosecution, defect reports or Building Commission investigation, before he attended the developer’s events.
“The premier regularly attends events and meets with businesses, employers and community organisations across NSW. If a company invites the premier to celebrate new homes being built, he’ll generally go,” she said.
“We’ve made no secret of the fact NSW needs more housing, not fewer builders. Where there are allegations of breaches of workplace safety or building laws, that’s exactly why we have independent regulators.”
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Max Maddison is a state political reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.