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GREENSBORO — UNCG is becoming a bit more neighborly.

The growing university, which has bumped heads with neighborhoods bordering its campus for years, has formed a consortium to prevent conflicts and help the school grow without being too disruptive.

Mike Byers, assistant vice chancellor for business affairs, said it was a meeting of the minds that has been a long time coming.

“We realize, as a university, that when we go from 10,000 student to 20,000 students, it changes everything,” Byers said. “From congestion to parking to the need for more on and off campus police — it makes a big impact.”

Residents of nearby neighborhoods weren’t shy about complaining about those changes — and that led to a meeting with the school in 2007, when the campus master plan was updated.

“We started learning from the neighbors,” Byers said. “We realized that they were concerned about us changing the existing fabric of their neighborhoods.

UNCG’s campus is surrounded by diverse neighborhoods, among them College Hill, College Park, Greater Glenwood, Lindley Park, Mayflower, Sunset Hills and Westerwood.

Representatives from those areas and the Lee and Tate street merchants associations are now meeting as part of the consortium three times a year. The city of Greensboro is sending representatives from its departments of transportation, planning, police, housing and community development and the Greensboro Coliseum. The group is hoping to bring developers and property managers into the fold, too.

“When everyone who is involved meets, when they know each other, it’s easier to understand each other’s perspectives,” Byers said.

Marsh Prause, who represents the Westerwood neighborhood, said he hopes the school and the neighborhood group can work toward their mutual goals.

“There were occasions in the past when UNCG and the neighborhoods surrounding it seemed to develop trust issues largely due to a lack of communication,” Prause said in a statement Thursday.

“The consortium is opening and maintaining lines of communication among UNCG and nearby neighborhoods that foster mutually beneficial collaboration in areas such as crime prevention, traffic control and land use,’ Prause said.

Byers said in the end, UNCG has the same interest as the neighbors — maintaining strong, distinctive neighborhoods.

“We’re going to be here for hundreds of years,” Byers said of the school, which opened in 1892 on 10 largely remote acres. “Having a lot of strong, diverse neighborhoods people can choose to live in that are all within walking distance of the campus — that’s good for us too, and we’re lucky to have it.”

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com