After 40 years of trying, the California government has finally succeeded in forcing two wealthy landlords to make a premium stretch of waterfront accessible to the general citizenry. 

Since the 1980s, reaching Malibu’s public Escondido Beach has been a rambling affair which, according to SF Gate, at the moment requires visitors either pay for parking a quarter-mile away or walk through a restaurant called Geoffrey’s half-a-mile away — but not for much longer. 

After four decades of attempting to unwind a maze of legal obstacles created by local landowners to prevent others from utilizing the sandy stretch, the California Coastal Commission and California State Coastal Conservancy came to an agreement with the individuals on Wednesday, the publication reported. 

As a result, the current homeowners will be fined and forced to build a public access point, a restroom and a parking lot for visitors. 

In all, it’s estimated to cost them several million dollars, before the fine. 

The coastal conundrum of Escondido Beach — which, ironically, means “hidden” in Spanish — dryly began when former landlords Marilyn and Roger Wolk, and Ken and Jeannette Chiate, inaccurately recorded the location of an easement with the commission.

They subsequently installed a metal fence, paved driveways and adjusted a key lot line, with the result of limiting access to the beach, according to a staff report put out by the commission. 

“Even if the public knew that the vertical public access easement was here, they could not physically use that easement,” enforcement analyst Robert Moddelmog told the commission, according to the Los Angeles Times.

After the conservancy repeatedly tried to reopen the now obscured access points, former Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer studio executive Frank Mancuso (who currently owns one of the two neighboring properties) and late Bally Total Fitness founder Don Wildman (who then owned the other) each separately sued.

Attorneys for both Mancuso’s and Wildman’s heirs, who got his property following his death in 2018, argued that both families inherited the situation but were happy to come to an agreement on how to handle it, the Times reported.