HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii lawmakers on Friday wrapped up a legislative session heavily focused on addressing Maui’s needs after last year’s deadly Lahaina wildfire. They also took on Hawaii’s housing shortage, tax cuts and measures to support distinctive Hawaii agricultural products like coffee and macadamia nuts. In a more lighthearted move, they adopted the “shaka” as the official state gesture.

Here is a look at some of the major legislation passed during the 60-day session that began on Jan. 17:

Money for Maui and wildfire prevention

Lawmakers appropriated $1 billion to cover various costs stemming from the Lahaina disaster, including $500 million for emergency housing for displaced residents and $124 million in rental assistance for those ineligible for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

A recognition of how global warming has raised wildfire risks statewide prompted legislators to allocate funds for more firefighting equipment, a state fire marshal and forest restoration.

Housing and vacation rentals

Lawmakers tackled Hawaii’s acute housing shortage with bills to reform zoning and boost vacation rental regulations.

The zoning measure requires the counties to allow two additional dwellings on each residentially zoned lot with the aim of promoting higher density development.

House Speaker Scott Saiki, a Democrat, told reporters on Wednesday this differed from recent past attempts to address the state’s housing shortage. Those primarily involved subsidies for affordable housing construction.

“We’re seeing in other states, and even in other countries, that governments are looking at zoning as one of the barriers to housing development,” Saiki said. “And it was time for Hawaii to take a look at that as well.”

The Aug. 8 wildfire put a spotlight on vacation rentals by exposing the large share of Maui dwellings being rented to tourists on a short-term basis. This pushed lawmakers to pass a bill giving counties the authority to phase out vacation rentals and make them available for residents. Gov. Josh Green signed the measure into law on Friday.

Maui’s mayor acted on this bill immediately by announcing county legislation that would phase out vacation rentals operating in areas zoned for apartments. The bill would affect 2,200 West Maui units in and around Lahaina and nearly 5,000 more elsewhere in the county.

Boost for farmers

Lawmakers passed measures creating standards for coffee and macadamia nuts, two of Hawaii’s most high-value crops.

The coffee bill requires Hawaii-grown and processed coffee to contain no less than 51% Hawaii-origin coffee beginning in July 2027. The legislation said existing law allows coffee blends identified as being from the Kona, Kau and Kauai coffee growing regions to contain only small amounts of beans from these places. This deceives consumers and harms coffee growers, it said.

On macadamia nuts, lawmakers passed legislation that would force macadamia-nut processors of iconic brands like Mauna Loa to disclose whether their products contain kernels grown outside Hawaii. Currently, some well-known Hawaii macadamia nut processers sell imported nuts in island-themed packaging without indicating where the nuts are from.

Tax cut

Lawmakers approved tax cuts amounting to $5 billion over the next six years, said Rep. Kyle Yamashita, the chairperson of the House Finance Committee and a Democrat. The cuts are in the form of a higher earned income tax credit, increases to the standard tax deduction and adjustments to income tax brackets.

Lawmakers also removed the general excise tax on medical bills for patients with Medicaid, Medicare and Tricare health insurance.

Yamashita said the changes are only the first step in needed tax reform and he aims to work on the issue further.

“Because at the end of the day, our biggest problem in our state is high cost of living. Our tax structure is at the root of that,” he told reporters.

Rep. Lauren Matsumoto, the House minority leader, said her Republican caucus has long pushed for the tax measures.

“Our best bills that we passed this year is when we did them bipartisanly, when we worked collaboratively and had input from everybody,” she said.

State gesture

Lawmakers moved to make the “shaka” the state gesture and recognize Hawaii as its birthplace. The hand symbol is sometimes known outside the islands as the “hang loose” sign associated with surf culture. People in Hawaii display the shaka to say hi and bye as well as thanks and aloha.

HONOLULU — In building next season’s roster, the Hawaii basketball team got right to the point.

The Rainbow Warriors secured a commitment from point guard Marcus “MarMar” Greene, who is transferring from Houston Christian. In his lone season at the Southland Conference school, the 6-foot-2, 190-pound Greene averaged 15.1 points (42.7% on 3s) and 3.6 rebounds.

“I’m definitely a threat from outside,” Greene said. “I pride myself in being able to score from almost anywhere on the court.”

Greene was recruited to help fill the void in the backcourt. Combo guard Noel Coleman and point guards JoVon McClanahan and Juan Munoz completed their NCAA eligibility at the end of the ‘Bows’ 2023-24 season.

UH will be the fourth college for Greene, who has one season of eligibility remaining.

Greene grew up in Gilroy, Calif., but attended Archbishop Mitty High in San Jose. Aaron Gordon of the Denver Nuggets also played for the Monarchs.

Greene played his freshman season at Sacramento State. After the Hornets made a coaching change, Greene transferred to Panola (junior) College in Carthage, Texas. He led the Ponies to the region final and a No. 10 national ranking.

In transferring to Houston Christian (previously known as Houston Baptist), Greene said, “I saw myself furthering my career athletically and academically. I thought that was the best choice. Houston is a nice city. Great opportunity.”

Greene started 28 games for the Huskies, who went 6-23 overall. He averaged 32.5 minutes. With another coaching change, Greene entered the portal last month. Soon after, he was contacted by UH head coach Eran Ganot and assistant coach Rob Jones. He took a UH-sponsored recruiting trip, then pledged to the ‘Bows.

“I like the head coach,” Greene said. “Ganot seems like a good dude. I think I can learn a lot from him. That’s a huge plus. … The whole coaching staff has a get-better mentality. They already built a great program, but they’re not satisfied. That kind of mentality is what I’m looking for.”

Greene said he began playing basketball when he was 2. When he was 6, he worked on basketball skills during an after-school program at the Morgan Hill recreation center. He said he became “serious” about the sport in middle school. And now, he said, UH provides an “opportunity to play high-caliber teams in high-caliber games.”

UH signed guard Aaron Hunkin-Claytor in December and received a commitment from former Utah Tech center Tanner Christensen last month.

For the third straight year, the Hawaii beach volleyball team met its postseason match in Loyola Marymount University.

Eighth-seeded LMU defeated ninth-seeded UH, 3-1, in the NCAA Tournament first round to bring UH’s season to an end in Gulf Shores, Ala., on Friday.

The senior pair of Kaylee Glagau and Pani Napoleon got UH (24-12) on the board first with a win at the No. 2 court, 21-17, 21-13 over Isabelle Reffel and Alisha Stevens.

But coach Evan Silberstein was worried about the matchups at three courts – 1, 3 and 5 – and those went decisively to the Lions (28-13) on a gusty day.

Silberstein told UH Athletics that he observed his players not doing enough damage in seven-point rotation turns on the “good” side of the courts with the wind in UH’s favor, while LMU took better advantage of its turns on that side.

“I thought yesterday in these conditions we did a really, really nice job with our service,” Silberstein said. “We really ramped up our service pressure in the walkthrough yesterday. So I think we could’ve served a little tougher. … They had a little distance on us in service pressure.”

LMU’s clinching flight for the dual match was at No. 1, where Vilhelmiina Prihti and Michelle Shaffer dispatched Jaime Santer and Alana Embry, 21-18, 21-11.

Earlier, Anna Maidment and Sydney Miller fell to Anna Pelloia and Jacinda Ramirez, 21-16, 21-15 at No. 3 and Sarah Burton and Julia Thelle lost to Madi Firnett and Abbey Thorup at No. 5, 21-10, 21-15.

LMU advanced to face defending champion and top-seeded USC in the quarterfinals.

It was the final career match for seniors Glagau, Napoleon, Santer, Maidment and Riley Wagoner.

Napoleon, of Bonita, Calif., came back to UH to end her seven-year college career after two years at UCLA.

“After winning Big West, we had so much confidence and I think we didn’t lose that,” Napoleon told UH Athletics. “We may have played our best, but LMU just played better. All we can ask of each other is if we played to the best of our ability, and I think that we did that, and did that this entire season.”

Said Silberstein, “We’re happy Pani came back. It was a really cool story for her to return … great for her to end her career on that winning note. Proud of her.”

Glagau, Maidment and Wagoner spoke to Spectrum News after their final home matches against Grand Canyon on April 14.

Said Maidment, who has moved to Hawaii permanently with her parents from Winnipeg, Canada, “Being able to support my teammates and just honor the work that everyone before me has done is just such a blessing because everybody here works so hard in this program. To experience it myself, with my family here all the way from Canada is just a feeling better than I’ve ever experienced.”

Said Wagoner, a veteran UH indoor player from Dublin, Ohio, who helped UH win the Big West championship with freshman partner Sydney Amiatu, “The rest of the seniors are awesome. They all have unique qualities and that kind of shows on the court. What we bring is different and I think it’s a really unique class. There’s a lot of us, so we get to share our experience with the younger girls and we are trying to do our best to lead any way we can and finding our ways to let our personalities shine.”

Said Glagau, an All-American from Toronto, “(I’ll remember) looking out into the crowd and seeing all the people who love me for who I am, and love me no matter what, not because of how good I am at volleyball or how well I play. They’ll be there no matter what. Just feeling really loved and grateful.”

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.