WAILUKU - Along with the costs of repairing broken walls and replacing soiled carpets and drapes, residents should be compensated $250,000 per household for their suffering from dust, noise and vibrations during construction work at a Maui Lani development, an attorney argued Tuesday.

"It is fair, it is just and it is right," said David Gierlach, representing 16 homeowners in a 2nd Circuit Court civil trial against the developer and a contractor of the Fairways at Maui Lani project. "It will say in Hawaii we are a people of respect, and when you trample on that respect, you will pay a price equal to the respect you have trampled."

During closing arguments Tuesday afternoon in the jury trial, attorneys for developer VP&PK (ML) LLC and general contractor Kila Kila Builders said neither should be found liable for damages.

"There's no evidence that VP&PK did anything that it shouldn't have done in terms of the design and the hiring at the Fairways project," said George Playdon, representing VP&PK.

Robert Richards, representing Kila Kila, said the homeowners' claims of negligence, nuisance and trespass stemmed from incidents either before or after the contractor worked on the site from April 2006 to July 2007.

"My client was not causing a problem," Richards said. "Nobody ever put him on notice of any problem."

Circuit Judge Joel August ordered jurors, who have sat through more than five weeks of testimony, to return to court this morning to begin deliberations.

In his closing arguments, Gierlach reviewed the damages caused as dirt blew into houses, foundations and walls cracked amid compacting vibrations, and workers trespassed onto property, knocking down walls, stealing fruit from trees and bulldozing a garden planted by one resident's late father.

About 8,000 tractor-trailer loads of dirt were trucked to the 13-acre site to raise the elevation of the property and turn "a valley into a mountain of dirt," Gierlach said.

Most of the homeowners in the lawsuit live in an older Kahului neighborhood adjoining the development. Gierlach said many are elderly residents who, after working hard to buy their homes, had their peace and quiet taken from them.

Instead of a view of the West Maui Mountains, some residents' backyards adjoin a 20- to 30-foot-high wall along the project boundary, Gierlach said.

At Lillian Torrecer's residence on Palama Drive, the dirt on the floor was so thick that you could see wheelchair tracks, Gierlach said.

"If there's one haunting image from this trial, it is the image of a wheelchair leaving tracks in the dirt in the kitchen," he said.

Both defense attorneys said the case wasn't about the loss of views or the issue of height restrictions, which was litigated in a separate lawsuit brought by residents against Maui County.

In January, August ordered the county not to issue building permits that conflict with the 1991 building height ordinance. That law limits residential building heights to 30 feet above natural or finished grade, whichever is lower.

August ruled that former Mayor Alan Arakawa exceeded his authority when he exempted the Fairways and New Sand Hills developments from the height ordinance, allowing the projects to proceed under the law that existed before 1991 and measured height from the finished grade.

Playdon said Fairways project manager Mike Pullman explained that the project grade was raised for gravity flow of effluent.

Pullman also described trying to contact neighbors so they could call him if there were any problems from the construction.

Most never complained, Playdon said.

"If a situation you were in is causing discomfort or damage, doesn't common sense tell us you would do something to ease the discomfort or lessen the damage?" Playdon asked.

Gierlach said the result was the same whether residents complained or not. He said many of the homeowners opted to "close their windows and live in hothouses rather than complain."

Playdon said Honolulu engineer James Kwong, who measured vibrations from machinery doing compacting at the site, determined the vibrations didn't exceed the threshold where they could have caused damage.

Playdon also questioned whether the vibrations could travel "across a golf course, up a hill and then randomly act" to affect two homes of plaintiffs who live in Maui Lani.

Kila Kila was an independent contractor and not an agent acting for VP&PK, Playdon said.

Richards said workers described as trespassing onto residents' property didn't work for Kila Kila but for other contractors that were working on the site at other times during the construction.

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.