The 5,000-home Koa Ridge development plan is headed back to the state Land Use Commission for the third time in a decade.

Developer Castle & Cooke submitted a new petition last week seeking LUC approval to urbanize 768 acres of farmland between Mililani and Waipio for the $2.2 billion project stopped twice by the Sierra Club.

In July a state judge halted the Koa Ridge project, ruling in favor of the Sierra Club. The judge disqualified one LUC member from an Oct. 15, 2010, vote on the project, which left Castle & Cooke one vote shy of the six necessary to approve Koa Ridge.

Commission rules prohibit the LUC from accepting a petition within one year of a similar petition being denied.

Castle & Cooke submitted a new petition on Oct. 3, but it has not been accepted by the LUC. The agency is reviewing the petition for completeness, and will later decide whether to accept it.

Harry Saunders, president of Hawaii operations for Castle & Cooke, said in a statement the company will continue legal efforts to appeal the Circuit Court ruling while pursuing a new LUC vote on the project’s merits.

“We are fully committed to Koa Ridge, which will create thousands of local jobs, millions in investment for our economy and much-needed homes for Hawaii residents,” he said.

Koa Ridge is planned for 5,000 homes, a hotel, medical campus, retail stores, parks and two schools.

Before the court setback, Castle & Cooke was seeking City Council zoning approval and hoped to start construction next year to deliver initial homes by the end of 2013.

Castle & Cooke has emphasized that the Sierra Club, which argued against the project before the LUC, did not prevail on merits of whether Koa Ridge should be developed on a large part of Central Oahu once planted in pineapple.

The Sierra Club has argued that preserving prime farmland on Oahu is critical to ensure that the state has the capability to reduce its reliance on imported food.

Robert Harris, director of the Sierra Club’s Hawaii chapter, reserved comment Monday on Castle & Cooke’s latest move and said the organization would be discussing its strategy in the next few days.

The Sierra Club has been shrewd in its fight against Koa Ridge, which it derailed twice in the past decade by reversing approvals in court after failed challenges before the LUC.

A prior version of Koa Ridge planned for 3,200 homes on 760 acres was approved by the commission in 2002.

That plan was brought down by a Sierra Club lawsuit that contended an environmental assessment should have been done prior to any LUC decision. Castle & Cooke intended to complete the assessment after the LUC decision but before City Council consideration of a zoning change.

A Circuit Court judge ruled in favor of the Sierra Club in 2003, and the decision was upheld by the Hawaii Supreme Court in a 2006 ruling that nullified the initial land-use change.

Castle & Cooke revised its development plan, completed an environmental impact statement and came back to the LUC for approval in 2008. Hearings before the commission began in January 2010. A preliminary approval was granted in September 2010 by a 7-1 vote. But the adoption of a final order detailing terms was made 6-0 a month later, with three members of the nine-member commission absent or not voting.

Under LUC rules, six votes are required for a land-use change. The Sierra Club argued that Duane Kanuha, a Hawaii island representative on the commission who cast one of the six “yes” votes, was not a valid commissioner because the state Senate had rejected his appointment to a second term.

Kanuha’s four-year term ended June 30, 2009, and the Senate rejected his appointment to a second term on April 26, 2010. He remained on the commission as a holdover member by Gov. Linda Lingle until earlier this year.