AN Ottery family who had instituted a land claim for a Rondebosch property they had to evacuate under apartheid, now occupied by a medical centre, are going to court to have a memorial plaque put up there to commemorate their loss.

Isabel Florence, who promised her husband Lionel, before his death nine months ago that she would continue his 15-year-old fight for his family's property on Klipfontein Road, will be asking the Land Claims Court for an order sanctioning the plaque when her case is heard on December 7.

A pre-trial conference will be held today.

Florence and her husband wrote more than 200 letters to the Land Claims Commission and attended several meetings before she, her children and the Legal Resources Centre saw the case going to court this year.

The respondents in the case are the new property owner Broadcount Investments, the national government and the City of Cape Town.

Florence recently filed a notice of intention to amend her initial claim for the land in the Black River area they had to evacuate with other coloured families, to include that she would, alternatively, settle for financial compensation and a memorial plaque.

She claimed R1.8 million, which was the estimated current rand value of the land they lost, excluding the value of further developments on the land, and a memorial plaque at the Rondebosch Medical Centre now occupying the land. The centre houses the practices of an orthopaedic surgeon, a psychologist and attorneys, an operating theatre and a new oncology laboratory.

Florence also included in her claim an amount of R20 000 in damages suffered in "considerable humiliation, hardship and embarrassment" to the family, and R5 000 (R85 in 1970) in removal costs incurred.

Broadcount Investments in turn filed a notice of objection to the amendments.

It said the Restitution of Land Rights Act made provision for "equitable redress", either through granting the appropriate right to alternative land or through financial compensation. But it was the state, and not the new land owner, which was responsible for offering redress, including a plaque, if so ordered.

The Act did not permit an order like Florence's against Broadcount.

The piece of land the medical centre occupied was also on only a part of the Florences' original property.

Argument on possible financial compensation is expected to be heard next year.

In September, Florence told the Cape Times of the hardships she and her husband endured while trying to regain the quality of life they lost in 1970 with the property, Sunny Croft, in Fraserdale.

She said yesterday that it was her "heartfelt wish" to commemorate her husband's efforts to restore the dignity of his family with a successful claim.

KAREN BREYTENBACH