I don’t know about your city but New Orleans has guidelines on what type of piles to use if it is residential and not commercial. Are you planning on having your pile driven all the way up to your balcony? That’s ugly in my opinion but I’ve seen it done on houses with high flood zones. Also, your minimum pile spacing should be your pile length multiplied by 5%, but also with a minimum of 3 feet radius from each other. Maximum length depends on your calculations. I don’t know what the code is for a railing system but it is pretty generic with most building codes. Not sure if there are codes on type of wood, but I would definitely look into using treated wood if it is exposed to weather.

As far as free codes, if you get lucky, you can google ASCE 7-10 and some educational sites (universities) have them on their website. I would definitely use LRFD. If it concerns you, bump up the load factors.