Scarborough, the beach-lined Maine town just south of Portland, is permitting more new buildings than any other municipality in the state.

Between 2017 and 2022, the town issued 1,717 building permits, according to data from the United States Housing and Urban Development Department. That is 83 more units than were permitted in Portland, a city with about three times the population of Scarborough. Bangor, the state’s third-largest city, permitted only 315 units in those five years, according to HUD data.

“Our experience in Scarborough has been great, it’s clearly a pro-growth community,” said Patrick Hess, the director of real estate development at Avesta Housing, a Portland-based affordable housing developer. “The general attitude to development is more accepting or at minimum neutral.”

Avesta is finishing construction of a 31-unit senior living project within the Downs development called the Village Commons. Residents will begin to live there from early next year, Hess said.