Housing Cooperative Dismantled Feral Cat Shelters in Authorized Colony

This is the usual battle between business and feral cat colony caretakers. The ‘business’, which is actually a housing cooperative managing an apartment complex (Windsor Oaks), is engaged in underhand misdemeanours in a revenge attack against the volunteers running an authorized TNR program.

There is a 22-feral cat colony living behind Windsor Oaks, a 100% equity co-op apartment complex which is self-managed. The colony has been there for many years. One apartment resident (who seems to be for the cat colony) says that she has lived there her whole life and the cats have been there as long. All the cats are managed under a TNR program and all are spayed, neutered and vaccinated.

The cats are protected through registration with the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City Animals. So if they are brought to a shelter they are not euthanized but returned to the colony. This is a well organized, first rate feral cat colony.

However, since 2014, the board of management of the housing cooperative (‘the Windsor Oak Tenants Corp.’) have wanted to turn the place where the cat colony is into a ‘country club’ for the apartment owners.

Naturally there was stiff opposition from the TNR volunteers and the corporation’s application for the development was withdrawn mainly because (it seems) the proposed development contravened a local protection order.

Also the cat lovers informed the city Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) that the corporation had been dumping garbage on the land. This resulted in them ordering a clean up costing $100,000 which apparently infuriated the corporation.

Subsequently, when a couple of the volunteer cat colony caretakers, Alissa and Camille, turned up to feed the cats they discovered the cat shelters had been dismantled.

The co-op argued that they had removed the shelters as part of the clean up! However, the BSA said that disrupting the feral cat colony was not part of their demand for a clean up.

In the meantime the cats have no warm shelters.

“They’re freezing to death. They’re crying,” Camille said.

There is a meeting on Feb 27th 2018 to discuss the matter. That seems a long way off. Urgent action needs to be taken.

This sort of dispute is not uncommon in what I’d describe as a war between cat colony caretakers and businesses of all kinds across the US. In this instance the TNR ladies should win because they have the long term backing of the city administrators.

Source: New York Post.