Take Action
Two surveys close 5.00pm Friday 2 October 2026.
Why now matters more than later
Fortis has not yet lodged its application for 122–128 Hewlett Street. It is consulting the community first, while the design is still being drawn, and the Department has told it to demonstrate how community feedback changed that design. Once the Environmental Impact Statement is lodged, the building it describes is largely fixed.
This is the window where what you say can still shape what is built. It is open now, and it is short.
Both surveys close 5.00pm Friday 2 October 2026
Two things to do, in this order
Do both. They ask different questions, and together they cover what the Fortis survey leaves out.
The Fortis survey
Run by Colliers for Fortis, the developer, as part of its social impact work. This is the one that goes to the Department with the application. The free-text questions are where your response does its work. The rest is largely about construction.
* Read the guidance before you answerStart the Fortis surveyThe BCA survey
Covers the permanent impacts of the finished building: height, bulk, overshadowing, view loss and the character of the headland. The Fortis survey contains no question about any of them. Ours also asks one thing theirs does not: whether their survey let you say what you actually think. You can only answer that once you have done theirs.
Why we are running our own surveyStart the BCA survey* Read the guidance below before you answer the Fortis survey.
It takes two minutes, and it is the difference between a response that is counted and a response that changes something. The Fortis survey is structured so that permanent impacts are not among the things it measures. Knowing that before you start is what makes your answers land.
Why this consultation matters, even though it is not the formal exhibition
Fortis has begun a pre-lodgement community engagement process for 122–128 Hewlett Street, coordinated by Colliers. This is not the formal public exhibition. That comes later, after the Environmental Impact Statement is lodged. It still matters, for two distinct reasons.
First, the developer has to show what it did with what you said
The Secretary's Environmental Assessment Requirements issued on 5 June 2026 require the developer to demonstrate that it has undertaken engagement in accordance with the NSW Government's Undertaking Engagement Guidelines for State Significant Projects, and to “identify how issues raised, and feedback received have been considered in the design of the project.” The record of what this community said, and whether the design changed in response, becomes part of the assessment.
Second, this consultation helps decide whether a social impact assessment is done at all
The SEARs require that:
“The EIS must consider social impacts and, should any significant social impacts be identified, a Social Impact Assessment must be prepared in accordance with the Social Impact Assessment Guideline for State Significant Projects.”
Read that conditional carefully. A full Social Impact Assessment is required only if significant social impacts are identified, and the Fortis survey now open is a principal instrument through which that question is being tested. What the community says in it, and what it does not ask about, both feed into that finding.
What the Fortis survey asks, and what it does not
This is worth knowing before you start. Anyone can verify it by opening the Fortis survey.
The Fortis survey asks you to rate
- Benefits: new housing, affordable housing, employment, site appearance
- Concerns, but only construction impacts: noise, traffic, parking, vibration, dust
The Fortis survey contains no question about
- Building height
- Bulk and scale
- Overshadowing
- View loss from public places
- The character of the Bronte headland
- The precedent for future development
The benefits are counted and permanent. The concerns are counted only where they are temporary and can be managed with a construction management plan. The permanent impacts of the finished building, the ones that go to whether this development has a significant social impact, are not among the things the Fortis survey counts.
They can still be raised. But only in the free-text questions. That is where your response does its work.
That second list is what the BCA survey asks about. It is why we are running one.
How to answer the Fortis survey
1. Tick the benefits you genuinely see. Do not tick “none.”
If you regard new housing and affordable housing as community benefits, say so. BCA does, and our published position has always said so. Then add the caveat in your own words, something like:
“I consider new and affordable housing to be community benefits. I do not consider this proposal delivers them at an acceptable permanent cost to this site.”
A tick that carries that caveat cannot be reported as support for this building.
2. Answer the construction questions honestly, then say what your real concern is.
Answer them briefly and truthfully, then add, in your own words, that your primary concerns are not about construction, but the permanent impacts of the completed building. Construction ends. A nine-storey building on the headland does not.
3. In the free text, be specific, located and concrete.
General views about housing policy are easy to acknowledge and set aside. A specific observation about a specific place at a specific time is not. Name the vantage point. Name the time of day or the season. Say what changes.
Matters worth addressing, where they are true of your own experience:
- Height and scale. The site is zoned R3 with a 9.5-metre height limit. Much of the surrounding Bronte headland is R2, with an 8.5-metre limit. The proposal is 9 storeys, and the developer's application sought 20–25 metres.
- The character of the Bronte headland. What do the headland, the beach, the park, the surf club and the coastal walk look like from where you stand, and what would a 9-storey building do to that?
- Views from public places. Not only private view loss. The views from Bronte Beach, Bronte Park, the coastal walk and the Surf Life Saving Club. Name the vantage point you are describing.
- Overshadowing and privacy. If your home, garden or a public space you use would be overshadowed or overlooked, say which, and at what time of year and day.
- Traffic, access and parking. Hewlett Street and the surrounding streets are narrow. Describe what you actually experience: at school pick-up, on a summer weekend, during a surf club event.
- Precedent. What happens to the rest of the headland if this is approved?
- Who bears the impact, and who receives the benefit. The Fortis survey asks about vulnerable groups. It is worth answering seriously: older residents, families, people with mobility needs, beach and park users.
- What the site was approved for. The Land and Environment Court approved a scheme for 9 dwellings on this land in 2023 (12.95 metres, 0.78:1). That approval remains on foot. The current proposal is approximately 85 apartments on the same site.
4. Use these words, in your own sentences.
Some phrases come from the Department's own assessment requirements. When a response uses them, it lands directly on the terms the assessment will be decided on, and it is much harder to summarise away as “some amenity concerns.”
| Worth using | Why |
|---|---|
| “the desired future character of the Bronte headland precinct” | The Department's own phrase from the 5 June covering letter |
| “precedent for height and FSR” | The second thing the Department asked to be assessed |
| “strategic merit” and “public benefit” | The test the developer has been told it must satisfy |
| “a permanent impact, not a construction impact” | Says plainly what the Fortis survey's structure obscures |
| “the view from Bronte Beach / Bronte Park / the coastal walk / the Surf Life Saving Club” | Named public vantage points |
| “the 9.5 metre height limit” · “surrounding R2 land at 8.5 metres” | Anchors scale to the planning controls, not to opinion |
This is not a template, and please do not treat it as one. Identical responses are discounted as coordinated, and rightly so. Write about what you can see from where you actually stand. One specific, located observation in your own words is worth more than a page of general objection.
Done? Step 2 takes three minutes.
The BCA survey asks about the permanent impacts the Fortis survey leaves out, and it asks whether their survey let you say what you actually think. That question is easiest to answer while it is fresh.
Start the BCA surveyThe BCA survey
brontecommunityassociation.org.au/survey, three minutes.
Open to anyone with a connection to Bronte: residents, workers, beach and park users.
The BCA survey runs over the same window as the Fortis survey, and it asks about the permanent impacts of the finished building that the Fortis survey leaves out. It also asks one thing the Fortis survey does not: whether you felt their survey let you express your actual concerns. That is why it is worth doing theirs first.
We will publish a summary of the results and provide the full results to the Department. When the Fortis engagement report is published with the EIS, this is what it can be measured against.
How to take part in the Fortis process
| What | When | How |
|---|---|---|
| Fortis survey (Social Impact Assessment) | Open now, closes 2 October 2026 | surveymonkey.com/r/TSBKZSG (~5 minutes) |
| Webinar 1 | Monday 21 September 2026, 6:00–7:30pm | Microsoft Teams, register at qrau.co/4DfMKq |
| Webinar 2 | Thursday 24 September 2026, 6:00–7:30pm | Microsoft Teams, register at qrau.co/4DfMKq |
| By phone | Any time | 1800 870 549 |
| By email | Any time | engagement.urbanplanning@colliers.com |
Full details are on the Fortis project site at hewlettstreetproposal.com.
What comes after 2 October, and one thing to know now
When the Environmental Impact Statement is lodged, it goes on public exhibition. That is the formal opportunity to make a submission, and three things about it are worth knowing before it arrives.
Submissions must be lodged through the NSW Planning Portal. Because the Minister is the consent authority for this application, submissions are made through the Portal, not by email (Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021, ss 287 and 287A). An emailed submission falls outside the record. We will publish the direct link and step-by-step instructions the day exhibition opens.
The exhibition period is short
- Under the Department's Community Participation Plan, applications on this pathway are exhibited for a minimum of 14 days.
- That is 14 calendar days including weekends, or ten business days, and the rezoning is exhibited in the same window.
- The Environmental Impact Statement will run to thousands of pages across dozens of technical reports.
The Christmas period is excluded from the count, but it does not stop an exhibition opening
The period from 20 December to 10 January inclusive is excluded from the calculation of an exhibition period. That protects the length of the exhibition. It does not govern when one opens, and an exhibition notified in mid-December reaches a community that has already gone away.
The practical consequence: be on the list. If you are not already receiving BCA updates, join now. This is how you will hear when exhibition opens, and there may only be ten working days to respond.
Join / subscribeA note on how we are approaching this
BCA is not asking anyone to oppose housing, and we do not. Bronte can accommodate new homes. Our position is that development on this site should be of a scale appropriate to the Bronte headland, properly assessed, and justified on its merits, which is, in substance, what the Department's own covering letter now requires.
If you take part in the Fortis survey, we would appreciate knowing. It helps us understand what the community is raising and whether the Fortis engagement report eventually reflects it. Email info@brontecommunityassociation.org.au.
Be ready when exhibition opens.
$10 annual membership. The more members we have, the more seriously we are taken.