The city of Langley has hired a new planner.

Mayor Neil Colburn announced Wednesday that Larry Cort, currently a senior planner for the city of Oak Harbor, will replace Alice Schisel.

Schisel’s employment with the city ended Oct. 31.

Cort will start work on Dec. 11.

Cort worked for three years for the city of Oak Harbor. Before that, he was Coupeville’s sole planning professional for eight years. He has worked as a planner since 1989.

Colburn said he is excited to have Cort on board.

“I can’t speak highly enough of him,” Colburn said.

City officials hope he will take a leading role in the comp plan process. The city is currently rewriting its comp plan, the document that will guide growth and development in the city for the next two decades.

Cort’s expertise will cost the city, however.

Colburn said Cort will be paid more than Schisel.

Cort will make $63,000 annually, according to the preliminary budget draft for 2007.

The city also announced it will hire a second planner in early 2007 to help tackle an increasing workload in Langley’s planning department.

Work on multiple construction projects is getting underway; construction of the Highlands, the largest housing project in the city’s history, will intensify next year, and the developers of The Grove subdivision are asking the city to expand that project. The city of Langley is getting set for a court battle with the county over the Fairgrounds Road project.

Also on Wednesday, the city council authorized the city to contract with Jack Lynch as a temporary planning consultant. Planning consultant Donna Keeler is leaving the city at the end of the year to move to Brazil.

The details about Schisel’s departure from the city remain sketchy.

City officials wouldn’t say exactly why Schisel left, but Colburn said it was not related to any specific project.

City planning under Schisel’s stewardship has been at the center of several controversies recently.

Earlier this month, city officials considered removing the elaborate, stone-rimmed planting beds along Third Street at the rebuilt St. Hubert Catholic Church. The city had earlier required the church to instal the landscaping.

And earlier this year, the approval and construction of a private duplex was repeatedly delayed. City officials blamed miscommunication between Schisel and Langley’s Design Review Board.

Developers of the Highlands have also repeatedly complained about the development restrictions that the city has imposed on the project.

Schisel worked for the city for about two years.

Before coming to Langley, she was a shoreline planner with the state Department of Ecology.

Michaela Marx Wheatley can be reached at 221-5300 or mmarxwheatley@southwhidbey

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