They do pay. Major developments get slapped with a mello-roos tax which leads to even larger disparity in taxes paid between long term resident and new residents. It’s huge, you could be paying $20k in taxes while the person down the street is paying $5k.
Mello Roos doesn't make the developer pay, they make the people in the special district pay. The developer gets to sell the units without any concern for what more people will do to local infrastructure.
I guess they could be $15k/year, but I've never seen an example that high. My mom lives in Yucca Valley and has two or three Mello Roos items (water district, local community college, and something else), and I think maybe pays about $600 total for them.
