[moduspol]

As a conservative here on HN:

I think the author is using conservative in the more direct sense: the people are fighting to keep things the way they are in terms of housing. This is at odds with the way the city is normally thought of in terms of being "liberal" (more accepting of change).

I don't think it's a statement on whether or not left or right wing policies contribute more to the issue.

[mempko]

I also thought that's what conservative meant in politics too, but you can correct me here.

[jerf]

If you go back far enough, it's where the term comes from, but it doesn't make sense today. That would nominally make it an oxymoron for a "conservative" party to ever propose any kind of change, but clearly they do.

It's a fairly common outcome for political words to get stuck to changing movements rather than identifying unique positions and policies over the course of decades and centuries.