NORTH SMITHFIELD — Town planner Michael Phillips is leaving his post to take a similar job in Smithfield, Phillips said today.

His last day in North Smithfield will be Nov. 26 and he will assume his duties in Smithfield on Dec. 1.

In North Smithfield, Phillips was pretty much a one-man shop. He said the Smithfield job was attractive because the town has an assistant planner, a town engineer and a larger building inspection staff.

“The fact that they have a professional town manager is a plus,” Phillips said. “There is an extra layer of protection with that.”

Phillips said the coming change of administrations in North Smithfield — Town Administrator Robert B. Lowe was defeated in his re-election bid by Paulette Hamilton earlier this month — was a factor. He said he had not heard from Hamilton about her plans for the department and thought it best to look around.

“There was some uncertainty about what was going to happen,” he said. “And in uncertain times, you like to have a job.”

Hamilton and Smithfield Town Manager Dennis G. Finlay could not be reached for comment.

Phillips, 49, has been the town planner in North Smithfield for 12 years in during two stints, the first form 1993 to 1997 and then again from 2000 to 2008. He was town planner in Cumberland from 1997 to 2000. Before joining North Smithfield he had worked as town planner in Glocester. He is a University of Rhode Island graduate with a master’s degree in planning.

Looking back on his last eight years, Phillips said he was most proud of the renovation of the Slater Mill complex in Slatersville and the conversion of the old mills, some 200 years old, into apartments. The mill-to-apartment conversion of the Tupperware complex was another high point of his second tour with the town. He said.

In Smithfield, Phillips said he was looking forward to getting more involved in economic development. With Interstate 295 and state Routes 116 and 7, Smithfield has a lot of places it can locate different types of development, he said.

“It’s a bigger part of the job,” he said of economic development planning. “I’m looking forward to learning more about that, getting more involved in that.”

jhill@projo.com