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Daryl Birney of Warrenton does not like Walmart.

However, as a member of the Warrenton Planning Commission, he cast the deciding vote on Thursday that let the retailer build a store along Oregon Route 101.

When a motion was made on three applications regarding the development, Birney joined commissioners Paul Mitchell and Henry Balensifer in voting against it.

“It was more a protest vote more than anything else,” Birney said.

When the five-member commission decided to break the applications – including the overall site design review – into three separate motions, Birney was the swing vote in favor of Walmart.

“The fact that we didn’t like Walmart had nothing to do with it,” he said. “We didn’t have a leg to stand on. We needed to have a finding of fact to tell Walmart what it did wrong, and the truth was it did nothing wrong.”

Rachel Wall, senior manager of community affairs for Walmart, said the retailer will ultimately prove positive for Warrenton and the northwest section of the Oregon coast.

鈥淲e look forward to bringing hundreds of jobs and a new, affordable shopping option to Warrenton,鈥� she said.

The land-use applications came before the commission from PacLand, a Seattle development company working on behalf of Walmart. The proposal now goes to the Warrenton City Council.