A Walmart store in Southington, Conn.

WARRENTON — Walmart has been given another year to break ground in Warrenton.

The City Commission on Tuesday approved a one-year extension of the retailer’s site design permit to build at Ensign Lane and U.S. Highway 101 in the North Coast Retail Center. The commission first granted the land use permit in August 2013 and has extended it three times, this time until next August.

But this time the vote wasn’t unanimous.

Mayor Mark Kujala and Commissioners Pam Ackley and Tom Dyer voted for the extension; Commissioner Rick Newton voted against it. Commissioner Henry Balensifer was absent.

Asked after the meeting why he opposed the extension, Newton said, “I don’t think it will make life better in Warrenton” to have a Walmart.

The win for Walmart came a week after a judge dismissed a case brought by a local opposition group, Clatsop Residents Against Walmart, against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The citizens group, formed in 2010 to oppose the retailer’s move to Warrenton, sued the Army Corps more than a year ago, claiming the agency failed to adequately protect wetland and consider alternatives in its review of a wetland fill permit application by Peaksview LLC, which owns land Walmart plans to build on. The Corps issued Peaksview a permit to fill 0.37 acres of wetland for construction of a big-box retailer.

Karl Anuta, the attorney for the citizens group, said he plans to file a supplemental memo appealing the judge’s ruling.

“In his view, they didn’t need to look at the studies Walmart had supposedly done,” Anuta said. “They just asked about them. We don’t agree. That’s what our supplemental memo will be around.”

Walmart intends to begin construction in spring 2017, assuming the federal litigation has been resolved, Skip Urling, Warrenton’s community development director, said.

Walmart’s plan to build in Warrenton is a divisive issue for North Coast residents, one that regularly draws opponents, including from neighboring communities.

“This request should be denied because, number one, it was a mistake to grant the permit in the first place,” said Sara Meyer, an Astoria resident and a member of CRAW, at Tuesday’s meeting.

Among her objections, the project, she said, “only looks at short-term construction employment and a few part-time employees at this site. It does not address the long-term economic health in the city.”

CRAW, she said, “wants you to know that we are not anti-business. We support business and smart, sustainable growth. Walmart is the opposite of that.”

Meyer, a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the Army Corps, added that the citizens group worries the money spent at Walmart won’t recirculate in the community. “They will, ultimately, take that money out of this community. That is why we fight them,” she said.

Should construction get underway, CRAW’s members will monitor Walmart’s adherence to safe-building and environmental practices, Meyer said. “We expect the city to be supportive of aggressive enforcement” when violations are reported.

Betty Stennick, of Hammond, shops at Walmart in Longview, Washington, and could not disagree more. “I believe the sooner that Walmart gets built, the better we’re all going to be.”

“I say ‘yes’ on Walmart, and let’s hurry up. We need it here. Both Fred Meyer and Safeway need more competition,” she said, eliciting an “amen” from an audience member. “And after that, maybe WinCo will come in — the more the merrier.”

Edward Stratton contributed to this report.