It's good to hear that Provo Municipal Council is listening to feedback. Reports indicate that the council seems likely to greatly amend -- we hope improve -- a proposed ordinance designed to cut crime at rental properties.

Other provisions would have forced landlords to attend special classes, use leases with eviction clauses and evict tenants virtually without due process.

Constitutional rights and values would have been trampled in several ways. The proposal contained more than a whiff of religious discrimination and would have interfered with the fundamental right of private individuals to make contracts; with a landlord's right of association; and with the right of a private business to conduct business as it chooses.

It was a rough draft, but these kinds of bad ideas need to be nipped in the bud. Certain members of the council were lining up behind it.

City officials now say the program will be voluntary, and the exemption of BYU students from background checks has been dropped. These are important advances.

The program will be closer to those already in effect in Ogden, West Valley City and Salt Lake. According to the Utah Apartment Association, landlords in those programs are charged a service fee for each rental unit, as allowed under Utah law to recover municipal service costs. Rental units have been shown to require 40 percent more police and fire service calls than regular residences.

In those programs, however, if a landlord "volunteers" to join an anti-crime program, most of the fees are rebated. In exchange, the landlord typically attends classes on how to reduce crime and agrees to conduct background checks on would-be tenants.

Advocates of such programs say these are common-sense steps that have proved effective in some of the towns where they've been tried.

The revisions in Provo's ordinance restore a landlord's right to choose whether to join the program, preserving in some sense the ability to freely choose tenants and contract terms. They would be free to stay out of the program as well.

Removing the BYU exemption was a big step forward. In America today, fortunately, one can't give special privileges to broad classes of people -- and especially to students at a school at which 98 percent of the students are of one faith. It should go without saying that getting into BYU doesn't guarantee that a student has no skeletons or will never break a law.

Improvements to the program do not mean that all questions have been resolved. It would place an additional burden on owners of rental units. Some may decide participation isn't worth the hassle. If some get out of the business and rental housing becomes harder to find, Provo may suffer.

It's also troublesome that one broad class of person -- renters -- is being targeted. Most renters are law-abiding. Why focus on them? Criminal statistics show that a disproportionately large number of criminals are young men or teenage boys. Everyone would be outraged at an ordinance that required families with teen boys to pay extra city fees. This is uncomfortably close to that.

As for people who have been convicted of crimes, statistics on recidivism are depressing. Still, such men and women have rights too, and they deserve a chance to get on with their lives. Does this law put undue pressure on them by edging them out of mainstream neighborhoods?

While the Provo council has done good work in responding to input and rethinking its rough draft so far, it should remain open to further improvements.