Purr-ging our cats!
It's foiled co-op's revenge: residents
A colony of feral cats living behind a Queens co-op is in danger of freezing to death — thanks to the building’s vengeful board repeatedly destroying their shelters, some residents say.
The Windsor Oak board is just angry because pro-cat residents thwarted its plans to turn the spot into a “country club’’ hangout, residents told The Post.
After plans for the clubhouse were foiled, “I went back to see [the cats], and none of the shelters were up,’’ said a resident named Alissa who declined to give her last name out of fear of retribution.
“I said, ‘Holy crap!’ and I ran to the garbage, and I saw them all in the garbage. This feels like a vendetta,” she said.
Alissa, 46, who has lived in the development her whole life, said the roughly 22-member cat colony has been there as long as she has. The kitties have all been trapped, spayed, neutered and vaccinated and then returned to the area, according to residents.
The cats are protected as part of a colony formally registered with the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City Animals. If they get lost or end up at a city shelter, they will not be euthanized but instead returned to the area.
But since 2014, the Windsor Oak Tenants Corp. has been trying to build a “club house” and additional parking on the cats’ large wooded home in Bayside.
The board was ultimately forced to withdraw its application with the city Board of Standards and Appeals amid heated opposition — and after it was discovered that the wooded area is protected by a 1950 land variance that shields it from any type of development.
The cat lovers also produced photos to the BSA showing the land had been used as a dumping ground for garbage.
This prompted the BSA to demand a cleanup estimated to cost upward of $100,000, infuriating the board further, some residents said.
About a week later, Alissa and fellow kitty caretaker Camille DiMasi went to the wooded area for their usual feeding of the cats and discovered they had been rousted from their home, with the shelters dismantled.
“They’re freezing to death. They’re crying,” DiMasi said.
Eric Goidel, a lawyer for the co-op, said the board has been removing the cat shelters to remain in compliance with the BSA’s edict to clean up the area and not use it for anything.
But Carlo Costanza, the executive director of the BSA, told The Post that disrupting the cat colony was not part of the instructions.
The matter is set to be discussed at the BSA’s next public hearing Feb. 27, 2018.
Alissa said the cats don’t have that much time to wait.
“This is killing us,” she said of herself and the cats’ other caretakers.