Masaaki??? Imaeda???, the property owner who illegally used an industrial lot in Alexandria as a squalid makeshift housing complex for foreign students, has been fined $215,000.
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Fire engulfed the property in Burrows Road in July 2014, almost killing the 13 Japanese and Korean nationals who were renting a spot on the site, which was a "chaotic" mix of four decrepit caravans, a pantech truck, an office building and a rundown bus.
The extensive fire completely destroyed a government building next door.
On Friday, the Land and Environment Court fined Imaeda $215,000 and ordered him to pay $71,000 in costs.
He pleaded guilty to two charges relating to carrying out development on the land without consent and developing the site for residential and tourist accommodation when it was zoned as a business park.
The court heard the premises belonged to a company owned by Imaeda and his former wife Mariko and was previously used as a bus depot for their now-defunct tourist coach business.
Imaeda had converted an abandoned bus into makeshift accommodation by installing a kitchen and small fridges. He also rented out a caravan above a shipping container and three other caravans. He ran power cords to the bus and caravans but the power would shut off regularly due to overload, particularly in winter when tenants used heaters.
Imaeda, who was born in Japan and came to Australia in 1973, lived in a building at the front of the site for about four years from 2009.
His son Shinji??? Imaeda told the court that, when he visited his father at the property every couple of weeks from 2010, he was "very drunk".
He said his father hoarded "junk, materials and second-hand items", including electrical goods, timber, building materials, car parts and furniture.
The defence argued Imaeda was suffering from a mental impairment, which affected his judgment at the time, but the prosecution said he "clearly knew what he was doing".
The site was used as a bus depot from 1988 to the mid-2000s when Imaeda ran a successful tourist coach business.
The business declined in 2002 due to a substantial downturn in the Japanese tourist market in Sydney, his former accountant told the court.
The maximum fine for each offence is $1.1 million. Justice Terence Sheahan gave a discount of one-third for his early guilty plea and high level of co-operation with authorities. But the judge found his mental state did not reduce his moral culpability.
"The conduct ... was planned and prosecuted over a long period of time, and involved some complexity, and he has shown no remorse," Justice Sheahan said.
In November 2014, barely six months after the blaze, Imaeda sold the site for at least $3.8 million, $1,360,000 above the reserve, according to a property report.
Imaeda is currently serving a prison sentence for separate criminal matters.
