PORTLAND, Maine — A Portland city ordinance meant to increase affordable housing is under fire from local developers who say it's actually slowing down construction and making new projects financially unfeasible.

Known as the Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance , the policy requires housing developments with 10 or more units to either set aside 25% of those units for lower- to middle-income residents or pay a fee of $182,830 per unit instead.

But some developers argue the rule is backfiring.

“We’d love to be building affordable housing,” Jonathan Culley, managing partner at Redfern Properties, told NEWS CENTER Maine. “What’s happening is nobody’s building anything, and that’s hurting the market.”

Culley said Redfern currently has about 1,000 housing units in Portland, but roughly another 1

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