 Groups such as the New York Communities for Change have come out against the plan, arguing that it promotes gentrification.Relatedly, in April 2017 the state government renewed the 421-a tax abatement program after unions and developers made a deal on wages in qualifying construction projects.Atlantic Avenue, in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, which has been scarred by decades of poverty and crime, was the first test and focus of de Blasio's strategy on affordable housing, one of the policy initiatives central to his platform of reducing inequality.