The Hong Kong government will scrap its offer of an idle site on Lantau Island that has been earmarked for Disneyland expansion, in light of slowing economic conditions.

The announcement on Wednesday means the theme park will no longer have the option of buying the site in question, which covers 60 hectares at Penny’s Bay adjacent to the resort.

That option will expire on Thursday. It was granted to the theme park for possible expansion under an agreement signed in 2000. Hong Kong Disneyland is owned and managed by Hong Kong International Theme Parks, a joint venture of the government and the Walt Disney Company.

“The government considers it prudent for HKITP to focus on the development and expansion of the existing resort in the coming few years, rather than geographic expansion into the site,” the government’s Commerce and Economic Development Bureau said.

The Walt Disney Company expressed extreme disappointment at the government decision. The company had been investing in the park over the past 15 years to promote Hong Kong’s tourism, it said.

A pan-democratic legislator who previously urged authorities to turn the site into temporary housing said the government should have made this decision much earlier as the site had been left idle for many years.

The location could be used to build a new satellite town given its proximity to existing urban areas in northern Lantau, Andrew Wan of the Democratic Party said. It could also replace the government’s controversial “Lantau Tomorrow Vision” project, which would require mass reclamation to build artificial islands at sea, he said.

The Penny’s Bay land was big enough to provide up to 10,000 apartments to meet the government’s housing targets over the next few years, said Chan Kim-ching, members of the land concern group Liber Research Community.

In 2018, there were plans to build a European-themed flower garden on the site under a project by Hong Kong-based event organiser Alan Fang and Dutch floriculture expert Ibo Gulsen. The garden did not materialize after project planners withdrew applications last year for the short-term use of the land.

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