Blocking new housing is resisting change. Maintaining the status quo is conservative. Pushing for change is progressive.

> I don't see how regulating the supply of housing is conservative.

In the article, it's not blanket regulation - it's increasing-the-housing-supply regulation.

Increasing the supply lowers prices which means individual's property value goes down - very anti-conservative.

An oversimplification of conservative values is to keep the status quo or increase the current value. Do nothing to lower that value.

"I don't see how regulating the supply of housing is conservative. If laissez faire treatment of markets is a conservative idea, then this cannot be."

Your confusion is understandable and to be expected.

"Conservative" in the United States has been co-opted by pro business narratives to mean the opposite of what it means by definition.

In your example, "laissez faire treatment of (anything)" is by definition, a liberal policy. Regulation, rules, guidelines - these are impulses in the conservative direction.

21st century politics in the United States has this nomenclature backwards.

Gun rights are another example of this. The United States has extremely liberal gun policies and the second amendment is almost off the charts in terms of liberalism. And yet we refer to it as "conservative" - and we refer to gun control and gun regulation, etc., as "liberal" policies.

It may not be economiclly conservative, but Donald Trump and his Housing & Urban Development secretary Ben Carson both talked about saving the suburbs and single family zoning.

Further, if one looks at the voting records of Calforina Republicans on zoning reform, they tend to not support it at a state level. It's most Democrats who are voting for these changes.

Housing is weird politically, it breaks a bunch of typical political assumptions.

If you look at the polling data for blocking apartment buildings or new housing, it cross-cuts parties fairly well, but conservatives are a bit more likely to oppose more housing than liberals. A slightly bigger difference than the liberal/conservative opinion spilt it that split between people who live in detached houses versus apartments/condos/townhouses. Those who live in detached housing oppose housing more vigorously.

Political ideology, about markets or reducing racial equality, are overridden by the housing preferences.