More than 200 church members and community activists sat through intense heat to watch the ceremonies and cheer the law, which eliminates agreements that have allowed some towns - mostly wealthy suburbs - to shift some of their affordable-housing obligations by paying poorer cities.

Critics said such agreements created a loophole that let wealthy towns duck their housing requirements and led to segregation. Supporters said the former arrangement helped towns avoid sprawling new developments and sent money to needy urban areas.

One housing advocate said that the law signed yesterday gave New Jersey the most comprehensive affordable housing policies in the nation.

"Today we're embracing the view that's been long-held . . . that the right to an affordable home in New Jersey is just that: It's simply a right," Corzine said.

The bill was signed at the Ethel R. Lawrence homes, an affordable-housing development named for the woman who launched the 1975 lawsuit against Mount Laurel. That suit led to the state's landmark, and controversial, housing requirements.

Around the speakers were streets named Faith Court, Hope Court, Tolerance Court and Equality Court.

"It's a really hot day," Camden Diocese Bishop Joseph Galante said as the ceremonies opened. "It's a really cool action that we're doing today."

Along with barring the deals known as Regional Contribution Agreements, or RCAs, the law also doubles the amount of housing that must be set aside for the state's poorest residents.

The reform was backed by a coalition of affordable-housing advocates and religious leaders, but opposed by mayors who said the ban would tie their hands, forcing sprawl into their communities as they build to meet growing affordable-housing mandates. They also note that only a portion of each town's requirement could be met through RCAs.

Urban mayors worry that they will lose the money that flows from the agreements. That money helps pay for rehabilitating homes or building new stock in poor communities.

"This reckless mandate will undoubtedly raise property taxes on every municipality in the state in order to pay for the rising of tide of traffic, congestion and infrastructure costs being forced on them by misguided bureaucrats and legislators in Trenton," Sen. Phil Haines (R., Burlington) said in a statement.

The change comes as mayors launch a lawsuit against the latest round of housing requirements, saying the state has put too much of a burden on towns by officials using faulty data.

Mount Laurel Mayor John Drinkard, who filed a suit earlier this week over his community's new affordable-housing quota, said his township was built out and would have to take open space to meet its new requirements.

Since the first RCA was approved in 1988, 10,400 units of affordable housing have been shifted using the deals, sending $216 million between towns.

Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. (D., Camden), who carried the plan through the Legislature, called the agreements "insidious public policy."

"To advance as a state we have to advance together, we have to go forward together. We can't pay some people to stay behind," Roberts said.

Roberts said he supported the idea of letting towns challenge their new mandates, however, and a state review to make sure the requirements were fair and accurate.

David Rusk, a housing-policy consultant who is aligned with the New Jersey Regional Coalition, said the new law gave New Jersey the "most comprehensive" affordable-housing laws in the nation.

"No other state matches New Jersey. No other state even comes close," said Rusk, a former mayor of Albuquerque, N.M.

Doreen Braz, a secretary for the state government and a resident at the Ethel R. Lawrence Homes, is one of the beneficiaries of the policy.

Braz said she lives in a three-bedroom, 21/2-bath home for about half of what it would cost to rent at market rates. With the benefit of Mount Laurel's school system and an educational center within the housing development, Braz said her 18-year-old daughter is attending Burlington County College and her 12-year-old is earning all A's and B's.

She moved to the town in 2000, leaving behind Edgewater Park, where she said crime had "infested" her neighborhood.

When she saw a newspaper ad for the affordable-housing site, she got in line at 6 a.m. for an application and waited four hours behind what she estimated was at least 100 others.

"I'll never forget - my number was 166," Braz said.

She moved in 2000 to a community with neat lawns and wide streets where she feels comfortable walking with her daughters.

"When you go to the supermarket, nobody looks at you like we're a different class," Braz said. "We're just like anybody else."