NEW YORK - Richard F. Bellman - a lawyer whose tenacity and legal ingenuity propelled him to victory in fights with local governments over racially discriminatory zoning, including in a landmark case against Mount Laurel, N.J., in 1975 - died April 18 on his way to work in Manhattan, where he also lived.

The cause was a heart attack, said his son, Jedd.

Where others saw dry zoning ordinances, Mr. Bellman, 74, saw a battleground for classic civil rights campaigns as he fought for subsidized housing for the poor and members of minority groups in white suburbs. He persuaded the New Jersey Supreme Court to order the town of Mount Laurel to change its zoning to make possible the construction of low-income housing.

The ruling “set in motion the most fundamental redistribution of property rights ever attempted by a state government in the United States,’’ a 1990 article in Political Science Quarterly said. In New Jersey, it required every municipality to provide zoning for affordable housing.

Mr. Bellman was victorious in another class-action suit in 1988, when he convinced a federal appeals court that Huntington, on Long Island’s North Shore, had perpetuated segregation through its zoning ordinances. The US Supreme Court affirmed the ruling, which broadened the interpretation of federal fair housing laws by holding that, to win a judgment, a plaintiff need only demonstrate the fact of discrimination, not an intention to discriminate.

The towns Mr. Bellman fought argued that their zoning laws were appropriate because they helped preserve a style of life, kept school costs down, and promoted single-family homes. But as blacks and other minorities sought to follow whites to the suburbs - where life was perceived to be better and where more jobs were available - opponents saw the land-use restrictions as racist.