Server :: Setup Permissions For SSH Access To Apache?

I am looking for the best way to set up permissions in the following situation. I have a web server set up on debian. I have different web sites in /var/www. Each web has a group of developers who each have system users and ssh access to the server. For example i have a web site in /var/www/example.com and a group of developers in group exampledev. I need all the users in exampledev plus the apache user (www-data) to have read write and execute permissions on all the content of the web site. I can give the group exampledev these permissions without a problem. The problem is that when they modify or create new files (they either connect via ssh o sftp which is the same right?) they are created with their user and group rather than exampledev. Am i going down the wrong path? This must be a common situation but i haven't found the solution.