Campaigners in north Belfast have called on authorities to reveal their plans for social housing on three key sites in the area.
Community representatives have voiced their fears that families languishing on housing waiting lists could eventually be pushed into purpose built high-rise flats close to the city centre.
Veteran housing activist Frank Dempsey, of Carrick Hill Residents' Association, called on the Department for Communities (DfC) and Belfast City Council (BCC) to clarify their intentions for the three plots.
Mr Dempsey said plans to build homes at a BCC owned site at Little Donegall Street and on DfC ground at Library Street were scrapped last year.
The campaigner added that proposals for a hotel, supermarket and nursery on DfC owned property at nearby North Street were also shelved.
Several housing associations have since been asked to consider the sites but Mr Dempsey said local campaigners have been left in the dark.
Campaigner believe the original plans for homes will be replaced by apartment blocks.
Over the last decade a large number of similar schemes designed for students have been built close to the Ulster University campus at York Street.
Several vacant sites originally earmarked for local homes were later snapped up by private developers.
Mr Dempsey said: "For some reason best known to themselves Department for Communities....and Belfast City Council, scrubbed the housing development and the hotel and put it out to five housing associations," he said.
"What we are basically saying is, where is our housing?
"Students are everywhere, snapping up these sites, where's the housing that everybody agreed on Little Donegall Street and the Library Street site and the hotel?"
Mr Dempsey believes there is a clear plan to locate apartments on the sites.
"Where's our traditional family homes that the SDLP, Sinn Féin, Housing Executive and the Housing association were committed to building?" he said.
Fellow campaigner Gerard Brophy, of St Patrick's and St Joseph's Housing Association, said high-rise housing options in the area have failed in the past.
"The Housing Executive is knocking every block of flats they own," he said.
"While they are knocking them down there's a possibility somebody else is putting them up."
A spokesman for DfC said: "Assessment on suitability of any proposed scheme will include how it meets the demands of the current social housing waiting list, the local community should therefore be assured that any proposed development will include social housing, including units suitable for families.”
A spokeswoman for BCC said it is "continuing to work with the Department for Communities to bring forward housing-led regeneration".
“The Belfast City Centre Regeneration and Investment Strategy, launched in 2015, sets out key regeneration policies and projects within the context of the Belfast Agenda.
"This includes an increased city centre residential population.”
