When and why did the use of CFDs start??

Finding funding for local public facilities and services is difficult, particularly after the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, when local governments in California were severely limited in their ability to finance such things as parks, infrastructure, police and fire services, and libraries. (Bob Lucas Branch Library was closed for 13 years before reopening in 1991 due to budget cuts).

Senator Henry Mello and Assemblyman Mike Roos proposed the Mello-Roos Community Facilities Act of 1982 (California Government Code §53311), which gave California local governments access to community funding with the requirement that two-thirds of the voters or landowners in the proposed district must approve the special tax.