The California building industry has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its legal challenge to a San Jose affordable housing law upheld earlier this year by the state Supreme Court.

In a petition filed Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers for the industry argue that San Jose’s law and others like it across California violate federal constitutional protections against the “taking” of private property. The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative Sacramento group representing the industry, has taken its fight to the nation’s high court.

“The California Supreme Court’s ruling carves arbitrary limits and loopholes in core constitutional property-rights safeguards as laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Brian Hodges, the foundation’s attorney.

The California Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling in June written by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, determined that San Jose’s affordable housing program is within the law, observing: “These problems have become more and more severe and have reached what may be described as epic proportions in many of the state’s localities.”

The case involves a legal challenge to a San Jose law that would require housing developers to include affordable, below-market priced units for low-income buyers on any new projects within the city. The building industry sued to block enforcement of the so-called “inclusionary housing” law several years ago.

San Jose city officials expressed confidence the high court would uphold the housing law.

“We’re confident the U.S. Supreme Court will agree with hundreds of cities like San Jose that have crafted inclusionary ordinances as a lawful and effective means to create affordable housing at a time when thousands of hardworking San Jose families face a crisis of spiraling rents,” Mayor Sam Liccardo said Tuesday.

The League of California Cities and California State Association of Counties, which back San Jose in the case, estimate about 170 local governments have put versions of the law in place to deal with the state’s shortage of affordable housing, considered an acute problem in Silicon Valley and around the Bay Area.

The state building industry, backed by groups such as the California Association of Realtors, considers such legislation a strong-arm tactic that in the long run will drive up already exorbitant housing prices. They maintain such laws will force developers to simply pass along the cost of subsidizing below-market units to new homebuyers.

In particular, the industry argues the law is an unconstitutional “taking” of property and that San Jose has not established a connection between the building of new housing and the affordable housing problem. Cities, they argue, make that case in forcing developers to pay fees to cover the impact of new housing developments on things such as local schools and parks, but haven’t done so for affordable housing.

San Jose’s law would require developers to offer 15 percent of units in new projects of 20 or more units at below-market rates. Developers could opt out of building affordable units by paying a fee, which the housing industry estimates could run about $122,000 per house.

Housing advocates warn of dire consequences if the Supreme Court strikes down San Jose’s affordable housing regulation. California has been considered a model for such laws, designed not only to provide more low-income housing but also to get it built in a larger cross-section of neighborhoods.

Howard Mintz covers legal affairs. Contact him at 408-286-0236 and follow him at Twitter.com/hmintz.