In a recommendation to the Joint Regional Planning Panel, due to meet next week, council staff said the development, known as Regency Tower, did not achieve ‘‘design excellence’’ and should not be approved.

The tower, a 30-level, 85.7-metre development incorporating retail, commercial, residential and hotel functions, is proposed to be built on the former Charcoal Tavern site at the corner of Regent and Rawson streets.

Designed by PRD Architects, the complex is an updated version of a 23-level tower approved by the council in 2009.

Excavation on the hotel site started months ago under the 2009 development application.

However, the council’s officers said the new development’s design and car park provisions were unsuitable and would set an undesirable precedent.

It noted the design of the building’s entry ways and street frontage would isolate it from the street and not allow it access to shops and restaurants on Crown Lane and Crown Street.

It also questioned the quality of the commercial space.

‘‘Massive areas of voids and deep narrow balconies...[that] compromise workable layouts within these floors are now proposed,’’ the design assessment says.

‘‘These areas appear to be an attempt to comply with [floor space ratio] controls, rather than a meaningful strategy...that improves the building form and creates quality spaces within the building.’’

The building would also exceed the height limit of 80metres under Wollongong’s development controls. However, NSW Planning will allow this slight departure.

On Monday, former lord mayor George Harrison’s Emibarb Property Trust lodged a similarly-sized plan for a $38million, 26-storey residential tower – the Skytower – to be built on the Sam’s Warehouse block.

The Skytower has been designed by the same architecture firm as Regency Towers and would be built on the neighbouring block of land.

The planning panel  will consider the council’s recommendation at a public meeting on October 21.