In my experience as an electrical engineer I size things like that and everyone fucking argues with me. I even have a document for it that basically says

"Please sign that you have been informed that what you are doing will cause a fire and you were informed of that fact by email"

And then announce that I am not proceeding until the document is signed. So far no one has taken me up on it.

Not to mention how with store fronts you don't even really need pavement gravel when used gets the job done and it lets rain water drain away through it and when the place goes bankrupt the lot slowly becomes a park back in my home state of Vermont there's a lot of places that have simple dirt parking lots

Yep. And the lower density that more parking creates means our cities are an empty wasteland of endless paving.