And if I place an overlapping copper area shorting those pins in the footprint editor, it generates spacing errors and won't even let me route to a pin (because of the spacing errors).
you can connect all the pads to a single net in the schematic to avoid errors being reported for SMD-SMD spacing(ofcourse you need to disable same net clearance rules while verifying the design).
Try this method and post the result, you can avoid the additional pin as well.