The Toronto real estate market just got a little more crowded — and a lot furrier.

Cat condos, which provide shelter from the cold for Toronto’s feral cat population, will be distributed throughout the city in the next couple of weeks as part of a pilot project.

Because they’ll shelter more cats, the multi-unit plywood boxes, their interiors lined with Durofoam insulation, will hold in more heat than traditional cat shelters meant for one or two cats.

“The condos have two levels and four units, so it’s like four apartments on two floors,” said Bill Howes, the shelter building coordinator for the organization behind the units, Toronto Street Cats.

“They will accommodate anywhere from four to a maximum of 10 cats, depending on how good friends the cats are,” he said.

Howes said four cat condo prototypes will be provided to large, high-needs feral cat colonies. Plans are in the works for a fifth to be installed at a High Park community garden that is having a problem with pests.

“The cats pay for their board by fighting the rodents,” Howes said.

Toronto Street Cats, an organization that spays and neuters feral cats and cares for their welfare, has built and distributed nearly 2,000 individual cat shelters since it was founded in 2010. But Howes said feral colony managers requested condos, since they might serve street cats better. Street Cats workers say they’ll build more if the prototype condos are successful.

“Condos are a more permanent shelter, and so are less prone to vandalism or damage. They will house a number of cats, which allows the animals to share body heat in a combined space,” Howes said.

“We have extremely harsh weather conditions, as we know from this winter, and we want to mitigate the circumstances by providing shelter for these cats,” Howes continued. “Otherwise they’ll find shelter, but they’ll end up under people’s porches or other places they’re not really wanted, and they’re more likely to be hurt.”

There are as many as 100,000 feral cats in Toronto, and Toronto Street Cats estimates that three out of every four stray kittens die within six months of being born.

Howes said he hopes that cat condos, which cost about $100-$150 to build, will help change that.

“We do it because we have a responsibility as a society to look after the animals that share our space with us,” he said.